Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Formatting Dialogue

Formatting Dialogue Formatting Dialogue Formatting Dialogue By Maeve Maddox A reader has a question about formatting dialogue in a novel: I have some confusion regarding speakers when writing dialog, and when you should start new lines. The logic I remember being taught is that every time the speaker changes in a story we should start a new paragraph. Is that always the case, or is it possible to have a quick line from another character or speaker in a paragraph where another character spoke? When I read a novel for pleasure- as opposed to studying a novel that does not appeal to me- I don’t want to have to work at it. I want to enter the fictional dream and not be pulled out of it by inappropriate diction, faulty grammar, or unconventional formatting. The time-honored way to present dialogue in a novel is to signal a new speaker by beginning a new line. Jane Austen did it. George Eliot did it. Mark Twain did it. The modern novelists I read do it. Combining the direct speech of multiple characters in one paragraph can be done, but even with the help of quotation marks and tags, the reader would find it slow going. For example, read the following conversation that appears in the novel Little Night by Luanne Rice: The phone rang, and they heard Clare answer in the kitchen. After a few minutes, Clare came back in. She was smiling. â€Å"Was that Paul?† Sarah asked. â€Å"Yeah,† Clare said. â€Å"He’s in the park, tracking an owl.† â€Å"He called to tell you that† Clare nodded, her smile growing. â€Å"Grit, I think you’ve brought us luck.† â€Å"I doubt that,† Grit said, before she could stop herself. Now read the same exchange presented conventionally: After a few minutes, Clare came back in. She was smiling. â€Å"Was that Paul?† Sarah asked. â€Å"Yeah,† Clare said. â€Å"He’s in the park, tracking an owl.† â€Å"He called to tell you that† Clare nodded, her smile growing. â€Å"Grit, I think you’ve brought us luck.† â€Å"I doubt that,† Grit said, before she could stop herself. Writers of experimental fiction- Thomas Pynchon, for example,- don’t hesitate to break the rules; that’s what experimental writing is about. Writers whose goal is to entertain readers by keeping them in the fictional dream don’t distract them with that kind of originality. They observe the conventions. The convention for dialogue is â€Å"new speaker, new line.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How Many Tenses in English?15 Words for Household Rooms, and Their SynonymsWhat’s the Best Way to Refer to a Romantic Partner?

Friday, November 22, 2019

5 Tips on Self-Publishing an Ebook

5 Tips on Self-Publishing an Ebook 5 Tips on Self-Publishing an Ebook While we’re still fond of the old-fashioned papery versions, no one can deny that digital self-publishing has made it much easier for authors to find an audience for their writing. But how does self-publishing an ebook work? And what do you need to do? We have a few tips to share. A library in tablet form! 1. Edit, Edit, and Edit Some More! If you want to impress readers, typos and bad formatting have to be avoided. But many ebooks fall into this trap due to a lack of editing and proofreading. Make sure your manuscript is ready before you even think about publishing. This means seeking feedback and redrafting until it is perfect, as well as formatting it correctly. Getting the final draft proofread is essential, too, so get in touch with us when you’re ready! 2. Cover Art We’re told not to judge a book by its cover, but not everyone listens to this advice. As such, you’ll want to think about how you present your ebook. Your cover art should look professional and work as a thumbnail. And remember to write a short, catchy blurb to use on the back cover. 3. Picking a Platform There are plenty of services self-published authors can use, including major industry players such as Kobo, Amazon KDP, and Smashwords. Amazon KDP also has a â€Å"Select† service, which offers extra benefits in return for publishing exclusively on Kindle. This can be great for new authors, but once you are more established, you may want to publish on multiple platforms to reach as wide an audience as possible. 4. Creating an Ebook File Some self-publishing services automatically create an ebook file when you upload a Microsoft Word document. However, for extra control over the process, you may want to do this yourself! The biggest decision here is which file format to use. A PDF is fine if your ebook will be read on computers, but for mobile devices you’ll need a dedicated ebook format. Your options here are ePub and MOBI (Amazon KDP only accepts MOBI files, so keep this in mind if using this service). You cannot create ePub or MOBI files in MS Word, but there is software available to do this. 5. Selling Your Ebook Once your ebook file is ready, you need to find an audience and promote your book! Part of this will be done on the publishing platform (e.g., writing a blurb, picking keywords, setting a price). The rest will come once your book is available for purchase. Think about setting up a blog and social media accounts, sending a free copy to reviewers, or limited giveaway and discount promotions. The point of all this is to get people talking, as word of mouth and positive reviews will help more than anything else!

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Dna, transposable elements, pv92 insertion, evolution, bioinformatics, Lab Report

Dna, transposable elements, pv92 insertion, evolution, bioinformatics, hardy weinberg equation - Lab Report Example Alu sequence that has been explored in this experiment is among these sequences. This DNA sequence is approximately 300 base pairs long that is seen to be repeated for about 500,000 times throughout the entire human genome. It is not yet known what function they play as well as their origin (Olson et al., 1989).These Alu sequences are known to possess characteristics that are critical to the geneticists. They are usually present within introns of a given genes, and they might be associated either with a disease or can be utilized in the estimation of relatedness between and among individuals (Deininger, 1989). In this experiment, there was analysis of a single Alu repeat and it was utilized in the estimation of its frequency in the class population as well as a basic molecular genetic variation measure. This was with no reference to relatedness between individuals or to disease. Figure 1 indicates the types of repetitive DNA in human genome An Alu sequence that was considered in this laboratory activity is located at PV92 region of chromosome 16. This specific Alu sequence is dimorphic, implying that it is present in some people but absent in other. Some individuals are known to possess the insert in either of the chromosome 16 copy (one allele), others may possess the insert in both of the chromosome 16 copies (two alleles). ... It will be 941 base pairs long only if there is Alu. This size increase is as a result of the 300 base pair sequence that is attributed to the Alu insert (Hollstein MC et al., 1991). There are 3 distinct outcomes that are probable when the products of PCR are electrophoresed on an agarose gel. If there is an Alu inserts on both chromosomes, each amplified PCR product will be 941 base pairs long. They tend to migrate at the same speed on a gel so in regards to this, one band will be visible which corresponds to 941 base pairs. If it is observed that neither of the chromosome posses the insert, then it means that each amplified product of PCR is 641 base pairs and they are supposed to migrate as one band corresponding to 641 base pairs. If an Alu insert is present on one chromosome but absent on the other, then it implies that one PCR product of 641 base pairs will be observed as well as one of 941 base pairs. Two bands will be revealed by the gel for such given sample. The 941 bp and 641 bp were separated basing on their sizes. As it is known that Alu repeats inserts themselves randomly in human genome. In relation to this, the Alu insert located in PV92 locus is very important in studies of genotype and allele frequencies in the human population. In the exercise done in the laboratory, the principles of the Hardy-Weinberg theory were applied in the analysis of the Alu insert allelic and genotypic frequencies in the population (Saiki RK et al., 1988). This was also to test the hypothesis that the class population alleles fit the prediction model of Hardy-Weinberg for genotype equilibria. By determining the Alu genotype genotypic frequencies within the student population, the corresponding allelic frequencies were as well calculated.

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Development and Expansion Strategy of SMART Cars Essay

Development and Expansion Strategy of SMART Cars - Essay Example Acquire new customer by optimizing search engine submissions, introducing online competitions and a free web mail system for SMART car owners and fans. Introducing a secure online transaction service that can be used to buy products and services or apply for finance, with a quick turnaround time of 24 hours. Implementation of actions to enhance and streamline the SMART sites so that they are easier to navigate and offering the customers a richer more rewarding personal experience. Addition of an exclusive owner section with car service record, logbook and special promotions. 2 Terms of Reference This report was commissioned by SMART on December 12th 2005 3 Methodology This report references the following: The Institute of Direct Marketing, SMART Car Handout, 2006. MediaCo, Email Marketing - Opt In Email Marketing. J. S. Fleming and Gail Said Johnson. Designing an Effective Web Page. 2003. 4 Situational Analysis 4.3 Company Analyzes SMART an automobile manufacturing, supply and sales enterprise was established in 1994 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler Chrysler, with approximately 1200 employees. SMART have dealership networks in 35 countries, with their administrative network in Bblingen Germany and production facility in Hambach France. Its product range exists out of three models, the ForTwo, ForFour and Roadster in hard top and cabrio styles. SMART's key issue has been always been the environment, with guidelines ensuring SMART cars are engineered to protect the environment by being energy efficient and preserving natural resources. SMART's policy starts with development, runs through production, and ends in the recycling of many SMART components. SMART Car UK has a multi-channel approach in selling their relevant products and...Its product range exists out of three models, the ForTwo, ForFour and Roadster in hard top and cabrio styles. SMART's key issue has been always been the environment, with guidelines ensuring SMART cars are engineered to protect the environment by being energy efficient and preserving natural resources. SMART's policy starts with development, runs through production, and ends in the recycling of many SMART components. SMART Car UK has a multi-channel approach in selling their relevant products and services. A customer gets acquainted to products and services by visiting their respective website's www.thesmartcar.co.uk & www.smarttogo.co.uk, and purchasing these products at one of 53 SMART dealerships. In the fiscal year of 2004/5, SMART UK's turnover was 6.8 million and the growth forecast indicate a possible increase rate of 15% for the 2005/6 period, with a total turnover forecast of 7.25 million. SMART's online marketing and promotion contributed towards the sale of 850 units of the total 11000 sales in the UK in 2005. Smart car UK is already a established business with a strong consumer base from which to launch a aggressive marketing strategy to increase its share of the automobile market. Some of its strong points are: SMART car as a new entry to the automobile market offering the consumer the retro unique look.

Saturday, November 16, 2019

EGT1 †Economics and Global Business Applications Essay Example for Free

EGT1 – Economics and Global Business Applications Essay Elasticity of demand is a measure of responsiveness to a price change of a good or service. When demand is elastic, the percentage of a price change of a product will result in a larger percentage of quantity demanded (McConnell, p 77). It basically means reducing the price of a good service will result in a greater quantity demanded and an increase in revenue for the seller. When demand is inelastic, a change in price will result in a reduction of quantity demanded, which will then lead to a revenue decrease (McConnell, p 77). To demonstrate elastic and inelastic demand results, Company A sells 100 pens at $1.00 a piece each day, making their revenue $100.00. Company A then decides to sell their pens at $.50, which results in a total of 250 pens being sold. The total revenue from the price drop is $125, resulting in an additional $25.00; therefore the demand in this scenario is elastic. If selling the pens at the decreased price of $.50 would result in more pens being sold, but less total revenue, the demand is said to inelastic. According to McConnell, when demand in unit elastic, the percentage change in price and the resulting percentage changes in demand are the same. The change in price will not increase or decrease revenue. Cross price elasticity measures the response of demand to a change in price of another substitute or complimentary good (McConnell, p. 87). Substitute goods are goods that can be purchased in place of another good. Examples of substitute goods are soda (buying Coke vs. Pepsi), computers, and potato chips. A positive cross elasticity of demand means the increase of price in one good, for example Coca-Cola, will increase the demand of a substitute good, for example Pepsi. As the price for Coke increases, consumers are more likely to purchase Pepsi at a lower price, thereby increasing its demand. Complementary goods are items that are typically purchased in conjunction within one another. Examples are ringed binders and notebook paper, pencils and erasers, and potato chips and dip. A negative cross elasticity of demand in complementary goods means that the increase in price of one good, an example being potato chips, will decrease the demand for the complementary product that goes with it, the dip. Income elasticity measures the responsiveness of consumers to changes in their incomes (McConnell, p 88). Demand for normal goods tends to increase as consumers’ incomes increase and conversely, demand for inferior goods tends to decrease as consumers’ income increases. Demand is elastic where there is a large availability of substitutes. The reason for this as the price of a good increases, if there is a large amount of substitutes for this particular good, the consumer will choose the substitute. As discussed earlier, soda is an excellent example of this elasticity. Airline tickets are another example. As one airline raises its cost of a ticket or to even pay for a bag to be checked, a consumer will more likely choose a cheaper ticket or an airline that doesn’t charge for baggage over the original. If there is no (or a very limited) amount of substitutes for a good, elasticity is said to be negative. A price change in medication will not likely change the behavior of a consumer relative to demand since there isn’t a substitute to taking the medication. Household utilities are another example of a limited amount of substitutes. In discussing the proportion if one’s income devoted to a good concept, the household budget comes into play. In a given month, households pay for many different good and services. A change in price may or may not affect the households demand for those goods and services. Often, it is dependant on how much of the household budget is devoted to that good or service. Mobile phone service is an excellent example of a service that will most likely have a large amount of a household budget dedicated to it. A change in price in the cell phone service will most likely result in that family making a decision to change to a cheaper service, since that will have a large impact on their budget. On the other hand, that same household may purchase light bulbs each month. The amount of money dedicated to the purchase of light bulbs is so small, that a price increase will not likely affect the budget, therefore the family will not likely make a decision to change to a cheaper bulb. The concept of time when discussing demand is important. When a consumer has a large amount of time to decide on the purchase of a good or service, the elasticity is positive. Conversely, if there is little time, the elasticity is said to be negative. According to McConnell, and excellent example of this is gasoline for automobiles. Gasoline prices change daily and more often than not, prices rise. A family, who owns a car and is dependent on that car for work, etc, will not likely stop buying gas in the sort-term, because it is crucial to their everyday living. However, that family over a long period of time may decide to find alternate means of travel, decreasing their demand for gas. Using the graphs for elasticity of demand and total revenue, areas of elasticity, inelasticity and unit elasticity have been identified. Demand is elastic between the prices of $80.00 and $50.00, meaning the demand increases as the price decreases, resulting in an increase of total revenue. Between the prices of $50.00 and $40.00, the demand in unit elastic, meaning the percentage of drop in price resulted in the same percentage of increase in demand. Revenue remained unchanged in this price range. Between the prices of $40.00 and $0, the demand is inelastic, meaning the price drop has resulted in an increase in demand, but not enough to over come the decrease. Total revenue has been negatively impacted.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

A Grim View on the Grimms’ Class Message Essay -- Literature Fairy Tal

A Grim View on the Grimms’ Class Message In one of Aesop’s most famous fables, the dastardly Wolf in Sheep’s clothing consumes a delicious meal of lamb and teaches the moral that appearances can be deceiving. Indeed, this principle is useful in dissecting the seemingly innocuous editing work of the Brothers Grimm. At first glance, it appears that the general changes enacted by the Grimms in their stories are nothing more than simple acts of censorship designed to achieve compliancy with the teachings of the Bible. However, a closer look reveals that these changes reflect a message about class status rather than piety. Christian ideas such as the preservation of the family unit and the burden of original sin are pervasive in the Grimms’ stories, but are used to induce fear in the audience rather than to attempt a spiritual explanation like in Romantic fairy tales. Themes of continued humility and hard work in the face of adversity replace notions of brashness and craftiness to escape poverty found in fol k fairy tales. Rampant xenophobia and anti-Semitism elicits fear of foreignness and the non-Christian, while frightened main characters are passive and must be rescued by saviors. While it appears that the Grimms cater their stories to the wellbeing of the middle-class, they deceptively and perhaps unintentionally convey the class message that one must remain stagnant in one’s position in life, and thus their stories serve as a social tool of class oppression contrary to the interests of the populace. To understand why the Grimms’ new class message is an important change, one must first understand the role of a story within society to understand how the Grimms take advantage of the fairy tale tradition and spread their dog... ...must be rescued from his or her problems rather than solve them, a significant paradigm shift from earlier genres of fairy tales that suggested at least some semblance of individuality. When there are problems, some outside authority will in due course come to the rescue. Given the ubiquity of the Grimms’ presence in German culture and literature, it is appropriate to consider the impact of this new ideology on the German psyche leading up to the Nazi era, if indeed this message permeated throughout Germany. Thus, while the Grimms’ motivation for their writing is worthy of further study and has not been addressed, the implications of their works are undeniably important. The Grimms have no intention of advancing fairy tales as a pure art form, but rather use their edited stories as a soapbox upon which to preach a new message of class subservience and vulnerability.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

You Suck: A Love Story Chapter 6

Chapter Six Do Animals Get the Blues? Clint was the only one of the Animals still left at the Marina Safeway. He was tall, with a wild mop of dark hair and thick, horn-rimmed glasses that were held together with medical tape, and he had a look of deep panic on his face. He'd been trying to keep the store together for nearly a week with only a couple of stock boys from the day crew, and a porter from a temp service (even Gustavo, the Mexican porter with five kids, had taken off with the Animals), but now a huge order had come in on the truck and he knew he needed professionals. He dialed Tommy's number for the fifth time that night. It was four in the morning, but Tommy was their leader – and perhaps the best frozen-turkey bowler the world had ever known. He knew what it meant to be an Animal; he would be awake. The machine beeped. Clint said, â€Å"Dude, they're all gone. I need your help. It's just me, some temps, and the Lord to-night.† Clint had been recently reborn after five years in a drug-induced haze. He swore that the Lord would forever be on his night crew. â€Å"The guys took off for Vegas. Call me. No, just bring your box cutter and come to work. I'm buried.† Once they had been nine strong, the Animals. Nine men, all under the age of twenty-five, left alone in a grocery store for eight hours with only Tommy to supervise them. They'd been given their name by the day manager, who had come in one morning to find them drunk, hanging from the giant Safeway letters on the front of store, pelting one another with marshmallows. Tommy had recruited them to fight the old vampire. They'd found the vampire, sleeping inside a vault on his yacht, and they had also found his art collection. After selling it for ten cents on the dollar, each of them had netted a hundred thousand dollars. Tommy went home with Jody, Clint went home to pray for the vampire's soul. Simon had been killed. The rest of the Animals headed for Vegas. Clint hung up the phone, then sat down hard in the manager's chair. It was too much responsibility. The weight of it would drive him over the edge. Even now he could hear dogs barking in his head. â€Å"Front door,† the temp night porter called over the half wall of the office. Clint stood up to see the Emperor and his dogs at the double electric doors. He grabbed the keys, disarmed the alarm, and opened the door. The Boston terrier shot by him, heading for the beef-jerky display. â€Å"Your Majesty,† Clint said. â€Å"You're out of breath.† The big man held his chest as he panted. â€Å"Gather the troops, young man. C. Thomas Flood has been turned to a bloodsucking fiend. Gather your weapons, we must charge again into the breach.† â€Å"It's just me and noobs,† Clint said. â€Å"Did you say that Tommy's a vampire?† â€Å"Indeed. I saw him not two hours ago. As pale as death.† â€Å"Well, that's not good.† â€Å"Your talent for stating the obvious is unprecedented, young man.† â€Å"Come in.† Clint stepped away from the door. â€Å"We are going to need to pray on this.† â€Å"Well, there's a start,† said the Emperor. â€Å"Then I need to call Tommy and tell him to never mind about coming to work,† Clint said. â€Å"Splendid,† said the Emperor, without a hint of sarcasm. â€Å"I believe we've achieved a new level of doomed.† â€Å"You've always been good to me,† Jody said. â€Å"Well, I try,† Tommy said. He was going up the narrow stairway to their loft. She was slung over his shoulder, her forehead bounced off his belt with every step. She seemed so light. Tommy was still amazed at his newfound strength. He'd carried her ten blocks already and he wasn't even feeling it. Well, he was a little tired of listening to her, but physically he wasn't fatigued at all. â€Å"I can be such a bitch sometimes.† â€Å"That's not true,† Tommy said. Yes, it was. â€Å"Yes it is, yes it is. Yes I am. I am a total bitch sometimes.† Tommy stopped at the top of the steps and dug in his pocket for his keys. â€Å"Well, maybe a little, but – â€Å" â€Å"So I am a bitch? You're saying I'm a bitch?† â€Å"Oh my God, is the sun never going to come up?† â€Å"Listen, you're lucky to have me, you wuss.† â€Å"Yes I am,† Tommy said. â€Å"You are?† He swung her over to her feet, then caught her before she went over backwards into the wall. She had a big goofy smile on her face. Sometime during the evening, blood had dripped down the front of her blouse and there was some smeared on her lip. She looked a little like she'd been punched out. Tommy tried to rub away the blood with his thumb. The cloud of alcohol breath she let go on him made him wince. â€Å"I love you, Tommy.† She fell into his arms. â€Å"Right back at you, Jody.† â€Å"I'm sorry I gave you noogies. I'm still learning to harness my powers, you know.† â€Å"That's okay.† â€Å"And called you a wuss.† â€Å"No problem.† She licked the side of his neck, nipped at him. â€Å"Let's make love before the sun comes up.† Tommy looked over her shoulder at the destruction they had wrought on the loft the last time they'd done it, and he said something he never thought he would hear coming out of his own mouth. â€Å"I think I've had enough for tonight. Maybe we should just lock down.† â€Å"You think I'm fat, don't you?† â€Å"No, you're perfect.† â€Å"It's because I'm fat.† She pushed him away and stumbled into the bedroom, then tripped and tumbled face-first into the shredded remains of their bed. â€Å"And old,† she added, although it was only through his acute vampire hearing that Tommy understood this, since she was speaking directly into the mattress. â€Å"Fat and old,† she said. â€Å"You're going to get whiplash from those mood swings, Red,† Tommy said quietly as he climbed into bed with his clothes on. Then he lay there beside her thinking about all that they had to do, about how they were going to have to find a place and move without going out during the day, and beyond that, just exactly how were they going to survive and stay hidden? The Emperor could tell. Tommy could tell he could tell. And as much as he liked the Emperor, it wasn't a good sign. And so even as he worried, and listened to his girlfriend yell at him, C. Thomas Flood became the first vampire in history to actually pray for the sun to come up. A few minutes later, his prayers were answered, and the two of them went out. Since becoming a vampire, Jody had always hated the way consciousness came on at dusk like the streetlights coming on. There was no groggy twilight between sleep and wakefulness, just â€Å"bam, welcome to the night, here's your to-do list.† Not tonight. Tonight she got her twilight, her grogginess, and a headache as well. She sat upright in bed so fast she nearly somersaulted off the end, then, when her head didn't seem to follow her, she lay back down with such force that her pillow exploded, sending out a snowstorm of feathers to whirl around the room. She moaned and Tommy came bounding into the room. â€Å"Hey,† he said. â€Å"Ouch,† Jody said, grabbing her forehead with both hands as if to hold her brains in. â€Å"That's new, huh? Vampire hangover?† Tommy waved some feathers out of the air in front of him. â€Å"I feel like death warmed over,† Jody said. â€Å"Cute. I'll bet you're missing coffee right now.† â€Å"And aspirin. I've fed off of you when you'd been drinking. Why did it affect me now?† â€Å"I think maybe the huge cat guy had a little more in his blood than I did. Anyway, I have a theory about that. We can test it later, when you feel better, but right now we have a ton of stuff we have to do. We've got to figure out the move. Clint called me from the store last night. Wanting me to work. Then he called back all freaked out, saying I shouldn't come in.† Tommy played the message for her. Twice. â€Å"He knows,† Jody said. â€Å"Yeah, but how does he know?† â€Å"Doesn't matter. He knows.† â€Å"Fuck!† â€Å"Little bit softer now,† Jody said, holding her hair like it was hurting her. â€Å"Too loud?† Jody nodded. â€Å"You know, for your notebook, Tommy. Vampire senses when you're hungover? Not so good.† â€Å"Really? That bad?† â€Å"Your breath is nauseating me from across the room.† â€Å"Yeah, we need toothpaste.† â€Å"There's someone at the door?† Jody covered her ears. She could hear sneakers scraping the sidewalk from all the way downstairs. â€Å"There is?† The door buzzer sounded. â€Å"Yep,† she said. Tommy ran to the front windows and looked down to the street. â€Å"There's a Humvee limo out there that's about a block long.† â€Å"You'd better answer it,† Jody said. â€Å"Maybe we should just hide. Pretend we re not home.† â€Å"No, you need to get it,† Jody said. She could hear the shuffling at the door, the rock and roll playing in the limo, the bong bubbling, lines being chopped on a CD case, and a male voice repeating the phrase â€Å"sweet blue titties† over and over like a mantra. She grabbed the pillow from Tommy's side of the bed and pulled it over her head. â€Å"Answer it, Tommy. It's the fucking Animals.† â€Å"Dude,† said Lash Jefferson, a wiry black man with a newly shaved scalp, wearing mirror shades. He pulled Tommy out of his doorway and hugged him furiously – crazed, back-slamming, good-to-see-you guy hugs. â€Å"We are so fucked, dude,† Lash continued. Tommy pushed away, trying to reconcile that he was glad to see his friend with the fact that Lash smelled like a beer-bar urinal filled with mackerel. â€Å"I thought you guys went to Vegas,† Tommy said. â€Å"Yeah. Yeah. We did. Everyone's in the limo. It's just that I need to talk to you. Can we go inside?† â€Å"No.† Tommy almost said that Jody was sleeping, which had been his excuse for keeping the Animals out of his loft in the past, but Jody was supposed to have left town. â€Å"Step in the stairway, I've got something happening upstairs.† Lash nodded and looked over the top of his shades and bounced his eyebrows. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed over. Tommy could hear his heart racing. Coke or fear, he guessed. Both maybe. â€Å"Look, dude,† Lash said. â€Å"First thing, we need to borrow some money.† â€Å"What? You guys have over a hundred grand each from the art we sold.† â€Å"Yeah, we did. We had a big weekend.† Tommy figured in his head. â€Å"You guys blew over six hundred grand in what – four days?† â€Å"No,† Lash said. â€Å"No, not all of it. We're not completely broke.† â€Å"Then why do you need to borrow money?† â€Å"Just twenty grand or so, to get us through to tomorrow,† Lash said. â€Å"Luckily I almost have my MBA and have mad business skills. Otherwise we'd have been broke yesterday.† Tommy nodded. Twenty grand was about six months' salary for him at the Safeway. He'd been a little intimidated by Lash's almost-MBA up until now. Now he was just worried that Lash would be able to tell he had changed. He said, â€Å"So, like you were saying, you're fucked.† â€Å"We were doing fine, only down like ten grand each, until we met Blue.† Lash looked at the ceiling wistfully, like it was a distant memory he was trying to conjure, instead of something that had happened a couple of nights ago. â€Å"Blue?† â€Å"You know that group they have in Vegas? The Blue Men?† â€Å"Yeah, the guys who paint themselves blue and pound on pipes and stuff?† Tommy was lost. â€Å"Yeah,† Lash said. â€Å"Well, it turns out there are blue women, too. Or at least there's one. And dude, she's sucking us dry.† In the back seat of the limo, Blue held Barry's face between her boobs, snugly enough to keep him under control, but not so snug that he couldn't breathe. While the other Animals had drunk, smoked, and fucked themselves into a zombielike stupor – and now lay sprawled about the glittery interior of the limo – Barry had opted to do two hits of XTC, a line of coke, and a bong load of sticky skunk weed, which had put his brain into some sort of redundant tribal loop that had him kneeling naked before her, chanting â€Å"sweet blue titties† for the last twenty minutes. She just couldn't take it anymore, so she had grabbed his curl-fringed bald head and pulled his face into her cleavage just to shut him up. Mercifully, he had gone quiet, because she really didn't want to suffocate him as long as he still had money. It takes a meandering road of wrong turns to take a girl from being the milky-skinned Cheddar princess of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, to a blue-dyed call girl turning tricks at downtown casinos in Vegas, but Blue would be damned if she'd add yet another wrong turn by smothering a golden goose between her proportionally improbable silicon joy orbs. The Animals were her way out, and if she had to stay in character as an Alien Pleasure Unit or a blueberry muffin to keep them on the hook, she would. Blue was a method hooker. Early in her adventures, after she'd left cocktailing due to a propensity for spilling drinks, and before she'd begun stripping, where her lack of balance was mitigated by the presence of a sturdy pole, she had a short career acting in low-budget porn. She befriended a promising actress named Lotta Vulva, who gave her a book on the Stanislavski Method. â€Å"If you can find your sense memory,† Lotta said, â€Å"it will keep you from barfing on the actors. Directors hate that.† The  «Method » had served Blue well since then, as it allowed her to calculate betting odds or figure her checkbook while her character was performing acts that she herself would have found unpleasant or outright disgusting. (How much better to reside in her sense memory of the budding Cheddar princess, coaxing the hearty, whole-milk goodness from the udders of a Holstein, than to face the harshly lit reality of her actions?) After six months Blue was driven out of the film business by a  «defect » one director called â€Å"not enough tits to fill a shot glass,† which no amount of Method was able to remedy. She returned to cocktailing, albeit at a strip club, where she seldom had to carry more than one ten-dollar beer at a time, until she saved enough money for breast-augmentation surgery and made her way to the pole. She danced her way through her twenties, before she was driven off the stage by younger, more gravity-resistant girls, and because she had skipped personal typing class in high school and had therefore besmirched her permanent record, she landed in the employ of an outcall escort service. â€Å"I feel like I'm doing Domino's delivery blow jobs,† Blue told her roommate. â€Å"Satisfaction in twenty minutes or less or your money back. And the agency is taking most of the money. I'll never get out of this business at this rate.† â€Å"You need a gimmick† said her roommate, a cocktail waitress at the Venetian. â€Å"Like those Blue Men guys in the show. I swear they'd just be a bunch of frat boys beating on garbage cans if they weren't painted blue.† And so it began. The fallen Cheddar princess of Fond du Lac found some semipermanent skin dye, opened credit-card deposit accounts, had some pictures taken, placed ads in all the free sleaze rags around the city, and Blue was born. It wasn't as if she wouldn't have been able to make a living without the gimmick – most guys will shag a snake if you hold it steady for them. But it turned out they would pay a lot for the exotica of a blue woman. She worked as much as she could handle, and her savings had climbed to the point where she could actually see the possibility of an exit. But about that same time, she realized that by going blue, she had opted out of the pipe dream of every hooker, stripper, and telemarketer: the rich guy who would take her away from it all. The whale who would drop a fortune on her to become his personal pet. There would be no big score for the blue chick, or so she thought, until the Animals called her in for a combination strip show and fuckfest. Where they got the money didn't matter. What mattered was that they had a lot of it, and it appeared that they would keep giving it to her until it was all gone. She had nearly half a million dollars in her makeup case, and Blue – the character Blue – could put up with a lot of attention from the Animals while she hid in the back of her mind and formulated an investment strategy. The tall, skinny one, Drew, had opened the hotel-room door an d said, â€Å"Hi. We discussed it and agreed that when we were kids, we all really wanted to bone a Smurf.† â€Å"I get that a lot,† said Blue. â€Å"We just wanted to bone a Smurf,† Lash said. â€Å"Understandably,† said Tommy. â€Å"She's really nice,† Lash said. â€Å"Important quality in a ho,† said Tommy. â€Å"But now we can't seem to quit.† â€Å"So you want me to do what – hold an intervention?† â€Å"No, you're our leader. We look to you for other things. So we want you to give us money so we can keep partying, and pay our rents and stuff.† â€Å"And when all of my money is gone, then I can intervene.† â€Å"Sure, if you feel you have to,† said Lash. â€Å"How's your credit?† â€Å"Lash, are you high?† â€Å"Of course.† â€Å"Right. Of course. What was I thinking?† Tommy was relaxing now about Lash noticing that he was a vampire. Clearly the former stewards of Safeway night stock, in addition to being wasted, had gone collectively out of their minds. â€Å"Lash, I don't almost have an MBA like you, but isn't there sort of some business principle that you're violating? I mean, isn't there a class about not spending your rent money on hookers or something?† â€Å"Step off, Flood,† Lash said. â€Å"You hooked up with a vampire.† â€Å"She was cute,† Tommy said. â€Å"An important quality in a vampire,† Lash said, looking over the top of his shades. â€Å"She had sex with me,† Tommy countered. He wanted to say that she was nice, but Lash had already used ;nice; for his blue hooker. â€Å"I think I've made my point,† Lash said. â€Å"Give me your money.† â€Å"You haven't made your point. You completely haven't made your point.† Tommy reared back as if to punch Lash in the chest, as the Animals did to one another all the time, but remembered that now he might crush some of the Animals' ribs. Instead, he said, â€Å"Don't make me cave in your skinny chest, bee-yotch.† â€Å"Your redheaded vampire kung fu is no match for the fearsome blue booty kung fu.† Lash made a howling chicken noise and waved his hands around as he fell back into a fighting stance, then went right back onto his ass on the steps. He laughed until he choked, then coughed and said, â€Å"Seriously, dude, if you don't give us money, we're going to be totally broke in about six hours. I did the math.† â€Å"You could go back to work,† Tommy said. â€Å"Clint called here last night. They're buried at the store. They need night stockers.† â€Å"No?† Lash said, pulling down his sunglasses. â€Å"Yes,† Tommy said. â€Å"Then we're not fired?† â€Å"Evidently not,† Tommy said. â€Å"That's it. We could go back to work. That's what we'll tell her. We have to go back to work.† â€Å"Why didn't you just tell her to go away before she did you all the way here from Vegas.† â€Å"We didn't want to be rude.† â€Å"Oh, right. Well then, off you go.† Lash pushed to his feet and steadied himself on the banister long enough to look Tommy in the eye. â€Å"You okay? You look pale.† â€Å"I'm heartbroken and shit,† Tommy said. He hated it, but Lash's bloodshot eyes peering over the sunglasses had actually given him a twinge of hunger. â€Å"Right.† Lash went through the security door. Tommy watched him as he paused at the rear door of the limo and turned back. â€Å"You need some blue nooky to cheer you up?† Lash asked. â€Å"Our treat.† â€Å"No, I'm good,† Tommy said. â€Å"All for one, and whatnot,† Lash said. â€Å"Appreciate it.† Tommy shrugged. â€Å"Heartbroken.† â€Å"Okay.† Lash threw open the limo's door and two of the Animals, Drew and Troy Lee, rolled out onto the pavement, followed by a great storm cloud of pot smoke. â€Å"Fuck, dude. Did you know there was a door there?† said Drew, the scruffy thin one. â€Å"Look,† said Troy Lee, the Asian guy who actually did know kung fu. â€Å"Hey, look, it's fearless leader.† â€Å"Go to work,† Tommy said. â€Å"It's only seven. You guys can get sobered up and be completely ready for your shift at eleven.† Not a chance, Tommy thought. â€Å"Yeah, we can do it,† Lash said, peeking into the limo. â€Å"Hey, Barry, climb off, motherfucker, I'm up next, then it's Jeff's turn. I put it on the board. Blue, don't let him do that to your ear, baby, you won't hear for a month.† Tommy closed the security door and sat down hard on the steps, hiding his face in his hands to try to make it all go away. The Animals had been his friends, his crew. They had taken him in when he was alone in the city, made him their leader, and if he got the tone of Clint's second message right, in about four hours, when they got to the store, they were going to turn on him.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

A Child Called “It”: One Child’s Courage to Survive

A Child called It is an unforgettable story of the author, Dave Pelzer?  ¦s childhood. He was a survivor of the third worst case of child-abuse†¦ Premium a Child Called It Review It David Pelzer's A Child Called It, is so good. It is based on a true story of his life. Everything that happened in this book happened to him in real†¦ Premium Book Report On The Perfect Storm Book Report on The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger The fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, just north of Boston, is one of the oldest fishing ports in†¦ Premium Child Called â€Å"It†- Characters: Heather Fonte Ms. Butterfield – 59704 A Child Called â€Å"It† by Dave Pelzer Setting: The setting takes place in March of 1973 in Daly City, California†¦ Premium a Child Called â€Å"It†: One Child's Courage To Survive By Dave Pelzer Child Called â€Å"It†: One Child's Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer David J. Pelzer's mother, Catherine Roerva, was, he writ es in this ghastly, fascinating memoir, a†¦ Premium a Child Called It By â€Å"Dave Pelzer† Child Called It by Dave Pelzer is an intriguing journey through the torturing childhood of the author himself.The title relates to the book because his mother calls†¦ Premium a Child Called It Essay by David Pelzer. It was published by Health Communications, Inc in 1995. The book is 184 pages. A Child Called It is a memoir of David Pelzer, who experienced one†¦ Premium Book Report On Sun Tzu: Art Of War And Management a few of the principles and concepts which are later expounded in this book report. The objective of this book review is to highlight the concepts and principles†¦ Premium Joshua By Joseph f. Girzone – a Book Report JOSHUA by Joseph F.Girzone A Book Report ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Francis Girzone is a priest. Advised by his doctor to withdraw from administrative work, he†¦ Premium a Child Called It got its title and that's what interested me in reading this book. A Child Called ‘It', by Dave Pelzer, is a life-changing story about, a young boy who is starved†¦ Premium a Critical Book Report In As i Lay Dying Critical Book Report in As I Lay Dying As I Lay Dying is a novel written by William Faulkner in 1930. William Cuthbert Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897†¦ PremiumBook Report For Todd Buchholz’s â€Å"New Ideas From Dead Economists Book report for Todd Buchholzs New Ideas from Dead Economists This was a great read! Not only was it very informing on past and present economic thought, but it†¦ Premium a Child Called It: Author David Pelzer Author David Pelzers first book, A Child Called It, details his early years of child abuse that he received at the hands of his downright evil mother. Pelzer†¦ Premium Tony Dungy Book Report Practices, ; Priorities of a Winning Life Author: Tony Dungy A Book Report Michael Fors BUS 625/626 Dr. David†¦ Premium Child Called It – By Da ve Pelzer A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer, is a first person narrative of a childs struggle through a traumatic abused childhood. The book begins with Dave telling us about†¦ Premium a Child Called ‘It’: One Child’s Courage To Survive Groth Dave Pelzer opens his book A Child Called It: One Childs Courage to Survive with the statement that this book depicts the language that was developed†¦ Premium In Contempt Book Report what he went through during the Simpson case. When I got the book I approached it like most students do when they have a book report to write.I didn't want to read†¦ Premium Anne Frank Book Report Michaela Hunter June 4, 2007 LA- Book Report The Diary of Anne Frank 1. The Diary of Anne Frank is about a young Jewish girl who lived during Hitlers time in†¦ Premium a Child Called It Analysis A Child Called It Abuse David went through multiple ways of abuse. Not only was he abused physically, but verbally, emotionally and mental ly as well. Through†¦ Premium Harry Potter Book Report ENGLISH BOOK REPORT: HARRY POTTER and the Prisoner of Azkaban AUTHOR: Joanne K. Rowling TYPE of book: Fantasy story MAIN CHARACTERS: Harry Potter. He is very†¦ Premium

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Focult essays

Focult essays 1. Explain Foucaults concept of the Panopticon. The panopticon, as designed by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century, was an idea that was supposed to enable a prison guard to hold all his inmates in a jail under surveillance simultaneously, while disabling the inmates from seeing one another. According to Foucault, a systems such as this one would be necessary because it was becoming more of a norm to imprison criminals, irregardless of their individual crimes, whereas these were previously punishable by a display in the form of a public spectacle. The panopticon provided a model for using discipline in prisons. Disciplining activities formed the foundation to all answers of criticisms of the prison. The reasoning behind using the panopticon is that prisons discipline people. Discipline remakes individuals, and criminals need to be remade in order to go back into socieity. Observaition and punishment for breaking any one fo the many rules starts this reformation process. Sturcture is part of discipline, therefore, all parts of days and nights can be carefully structured. Repetitive and monotonous work would engrain proper work habits into an individual. They would be given privilages, culminating in parole, in order to prove themselves adequately disciplined to function in society. A "prison success" would be a person who is docile and does as ordered without question. 3. Explain Foucaults idea of confession and its connection to sexuality. Penetrating examinations of patients, and pressure on the patient to "confess" all the details become the way that some disciplines operate on people. The examiner and the examinee move around each other in the form of a "game." There is pleasure in prying out secrets, while there is also pleasure in withholding secrets. And the sites of power in these cases have sexual tension built in the following relationships: shrink and patient, teacher and student, parent and child, priest and...

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

The Television System of Paul Nipkow

The Television System of Paul Nipkow German engineering student, Paul Nipkow proposed and patented the worlds first mechanical television system in 1884. Paul Nipkow devised the notion of dissecting the image and transmitting it sequentially. To do this he designed the first television scanning device. Paul Nipkow was the first person to discover televisions scanning principle, in which the light intensities of small portions of an image are successively analyzed and transmitted. In 1873, the photoconductive  properties of the element selenium were discovered, the fact that seleniums electrical conduction varied with the amount of illumination it received. Paul Nipkow created a rotating scanning disk camera called the Nipkow disk, a device for picture analyzation that consisted of a rapidly rotating disk placed between a scene and a light sensitive selenium element. The image had only 18 lines of resolution. Nipkow Disk According to R. J. Reiman author of Who Invented Television: The Nipkow disk was a rotating disk with holes arranged in a spiral around its edge. Light passing through the holes as the disk rotated produced a rectangular scanning pattern or raster which could be used to either generate an electrical signal from the scene for transmitting or to produce an image from the signal at the receiver. As the disk rotated, the image was scanned by the perforations in the disk, and light from different portions of it passed to a selenium photocell. The number of scanned lines was equal to the number of perforations and each rotation of the disk produced a television frame. In the receiver, the brightness of the light source would be varied by the signal voltage. Again, the light passed through a synchronously rotating perforated disk and formed a raster on the projection screen. Mechanical viewers had the serious limitation of resolution and brightness. No one is sure if Paul Nipkow actually built a working prototype of his television system. It would take the development of the amplification tube in 1907 before the Nipkow Disk could become practical. All mechanical television systems were outmoded in 1934 by electronic television systems.

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Project Management Mock Exam Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Project Management Mock Exam Paper - Essay Example â€Å"The benefit of utilising and understanding Belbin Team Roles is that not only do we learn more about ourselves, but also a lot about our work colleagues and how to get the best out of them† (â€Å"Belbin Team-Role Theory,† 2011, pgh. 3). In Belbin’s theory, his specified team roles help delineate what kind of worker each person is within a group setting at work. It is obvious from the â€Å"Belbin Team-Role Summary Sheet† that every individual contributing in a group—either as a plant, a resource investigator, a coordinator, a shaper, a monitor evaluator, a teamworker, an implementer, a completer finisher, or a specialist—has particular strengths and weaknesses (2011, pp. 1). ... Teamworkers are People-Oriented Roles. Teamworkers want to make the flow of the group smooth, and will do anything to be cooperative. In fact, they will go out of their way to make any project operate like a well-oiled machine. Teamworkers are diplomatic. Not only do they avoid friction and drama, but they try to build a team instead of break it down. Typical teamworkers will always try to repair any fractures within the infrastructure of the team. Teamworkers are good to have around because they are beneficial alliances in the event that other workers are upset with the manager. Specialists are Thought-Oriented Roles. Specialists are self-starting, dedicated types who evaluates research. Additionally, this person finds specialized information that is difficult to find. The weakness of a specialist is that he or she tends to get weighed down in technicalities. These prevent him or her from becoming an integral part of any team. Although the specialist’s skills are invaluable, he or she might have to be dropped from the team if he or she cannot get past the fact that it is important to coordinate with the other team members. Without doing this, the team will not be supported and could have other additional problems—thus ruining the teamwork. iii) Imagine an unbalanced team was formed in the group project, e.g. lack of one group type in the project team. What happens then? (329 words) Basically, Belbin’s theory of team-roles definitely seemed to make sense. Even in the face of an unbalanced team, various people can step up into place in order to take leadership in the team. One of the group members on the team who would be a specialist—having specific knowledge about the activity trying to be