The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 22~23

Twenty-two Theo The walls of Molly's trailer were plastered with movie posters. He stood in the middle of the living room among the scattered videotapes, magazines, and junk mail and slowly turned. It was her, Molly. She hadn't been lying all this time. Most of the posters were in foreign languages, but every one featured a younger Molly in various states of undress, holding weapons or fighting off bad guys, her hair flying in the wind, a nuked-out city or a desert littered with human skulls and burned-out cars in the background. The adolescent male part of Theo, the part that every man tries to bury but carries to his grave, reared up. She was a movie star. A hot movie star! And he knew her, had in fact put handcuffs on her. If there was only a locker room, a street corner, or a second-period study hall where he could brag about it to his friends. But he didn't really have any friends, except for Gabe maybe, and Gabe was a grown-up. The prurient moment passed and Theo felt guilty about the way he had treated Molly: patronizing her and condescending to her; the way many people treated him when he tried to be something besides a pothead and puppet. He kneeled down to a bookshelf filled with videotapes, found one labeled KENDRA: WARRIOR BABE OF THE OUT LAND (ENGLISH), and slipped it into the VCR and turned on the television. Then he turned off the lights, laid his guns on the coffee table, and lay down on Molly's couch to wait. He watched as the Crazy Lady of Pine Cove battled mutants and Sand Pirates for half an hour before he drifted off to sleep. His mind needed a deeper escape from his problems than the movie could provide. â€Å"Hi, Theo.† He came awake startled. The movie was still casting a flickering light over the room, so he couldn't have been sleeping that long. She stood in the doorway, half in shadow, looking very much like the woman on the television screen. She held an assault rifle at her side. â€Å"Molly, I've been waiting for you.† â€Å"How'd you like it?† She nodded toward the television. â€Å"Loved it. I never realized. I was just so tired†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Molly nodded. â€Å"I won't be long, I just came to get some clean clothes. You're welcome to stay here.† Theo didn't know what to do. It didn't seem like the time to grab one of the pistols off the table. He felt more embarrassed than threatened. â€Å"Thanks,† he said. â€Å"He's the last one, Theo. After him there aren't any more of his kind. His time has passed. I think that's what we have in common. You don't know what it is to be a has-been, do you?† â€Å"I think I'm what they call a never-was.† â€Å"That's easier. At least you're always looking up the ladder, not down. Coming down is scarier.† â€Å"How? Why? What is he?† â€Å"I'm not sure, a dragon maybe. Who knows?† She leaned back against the doorway and sighed. â€Å"But I can kinda tell what he's thinking. I guess it's because I'm nuts. Who would have thought that would come in handy, huh?† â€Å"Don't say that about yourself. You're saner than I am.† Molly laughed, and Theo could see her movie-star teeth shine in the light of the television. â€Å"You're a neurotic, Theo. A neurotic is someone who thinks something is wrong with him, but everyone else thinks he is normal; a psychotic thinks something's wrong with her. Take a poll of the locals, I think I'd come out in the latter category, don't you?† â€Å"Molly, this is really dangerous stuff you're messing with.† â€Å"He won't hurt me.† â€Å"It's not just that. You could go to jail just for having that machine gun, Molly. People are getting killed, aren't they?† â€Å"In a manner of speaking.† â€Å"That's what happened to Joseph Leander, and the guys working the drug lab, right? Your pal ate them?† â€Å"They were going to hurt you, and Steve was hungry. Seemed like great timing to me.† â€Å"Molly, that's murder!† â€Å"Theo! I'm nuts. What are they going to do to me?† Theo shrugged his shoulders and sat back on the couch. â€Å"I don't know what to do.† â€Å"You're not in a position to do anything right now. Get some rest.† Theo cradled his head in his hands. His cell phone, still in the pocket of his flannel shirt, began ringing. â€Å"I could sure use a hit right now.† â€Å"There's some Smurfs of Sanity in the cupboard over the sink – neuroleptics Dr. Val gave me, antipsychotics – they've done wonders for me.† â€Å"Obviously.† â€Å"Your phone is ringing.† Theo pulled out the phone, flipped it open, hit the answer button and watched as the incoming number ap peared on the display. It was Sheriff Burton's cell phone number. Theo hit disconnect. â€Å"I'm fucked,† Theo said. Molly picked up Theo's .357 Magnum from the table, held it on Theo, then picked up Joseph Leander's automatic. â€Å"I'll give these back before I go. I'm going to get some clean clothes and some girlie things out of my bedroom. You be okay here?† â€Å"Yeah, sure.† His head was still hung. He spoke into his lap. â€Å"You're bumming me out, Theo.† â€Å"Sorry.† Molly was gone from the room for only five minutes, in which time Theo tried to get a handle on what had happened. Molly returned with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She was wearing the Kendra costume, com-plete with thigh-high boots. Even in the dim light from the television, Theo could see a ragged scar over her breast. She caught him looking. â€Å"Ended my career,† she said. â€Å"I suppose now they could fix it, but it's a little late.† â€Å"I'm sorry,† Theo said. â€Å"I think you look beautiful.† She smiled and shifted both of the pistols to one hand. She'd left the assault rifle by the door and Theo hadn't even noticed. â€Å"You ever feel special, Theo?† â€Å"Special?† â€Å"Not like you're better than everyone else, just that you're different in a good way, like it makes a difference that you're on the planet? You ever feel that way?† â€Å"I don't know. No, not really.† â€Å"I had that for a while. Even though they were cheesy B movies and even though I had to do some humiliating things to get into them, I felt special, Theo. Then it went away. Well, now I feel that way again. That's why.† â€Å"Why what?† â€Å"You asked me why before. That's why I'm going back to Steve.† â€Å"Steve? You call him Steve?† â€Å"He looked like a Steve,† Molly said. â€Å"I have to go. I'll leave your guns in the bed of that red truck you stole. Don't try to follow, okay?† Theo nodded. â€Å"Molly, don't let it kill anybody else. Promise me that.† â€Å"Promise to leave us alone?† â€Å"I can't do that.† â€Å"Okay. Take care of yourself.† She grabbed the assault rifle, kicked open the door, and stepped out. Theo heard her go down the steps, pause, then come back up. She popped her head in the door. â€Å"I'm sorry you never felt special, Theo,† she said. Theo forced a smile. â€Å"Thanks, Molly.† Gabe Gabe stood in the foyer of Valerie Riordan's home, looking at his hiking boots, then the white carpet, then his boots again. Val had gone into the kitchen to get some wine. Skinner was wandering around outside. Gabe sat down on the marble floor, unlaced his boots, then slipped them off. He'd once been into a level-nine clean room at a biotech facility in San Jose, a place where the air was scrubbed and filtered down to the micron and you had to wear a plastic bunny suit with its own air umbilical to avoid contaminating the specimens. Strangely, he'd had a similar feeling to the one he was feeling now, which was: I am the harbinger of filth. Thank God Theo had made him shower and change before his date. Val came into the sunken living room carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She looked up at Gabe, who was standing at the edge of the stairs as if ready to wade into molten lava. â€Å"Well, come on in and have a seat,† Val said. Gabe took a tentative step. â€Å"Nice place,† he said. â€Å"Thanks, I still have a lot to do on it. I suppose I should just hire a decorator and have done with it, but I like finding pieces myself.† â€Å"Right,† Gabe said, taking another step. You could play handball in this room if you didn't mind destroying a lot of antiques. â€Å"It's a cabernet from Wild Horse Vineyard over the hill. I hope you like it.† Val poured the wine into stemmed bubble glasses. She took hers and sat down on the velvet couch, then raised her eyebrows as if to say, â€Å"Well?† Gabe joined her at the other end of the couch, then took a tentative sip of the wine. â€Å"It's nice.† â€Å"For a local cheapie,† Val said. An awkward silence passed between them. Val made a show of tasting the wine again, then said, â€Å"You don't really believe this stuff about a sea monster, do you, Gabe?† Gabe was relieved. She wanted to talk about work. He'd been afraid that she would want to talk about something else – anything else – and he didn't really know how. â€Å"Well, there are the tracks, which look very authentic, so if they are fake, whoever did them studied fossil tracks and replicated them perfectly. Then there's the timing of the rat migration, plus Theo and your patient. Estelle, was it?† Val set down her wine. â€Å"Gabe, I know you're a scientist, and a discovery like this could make you rich and famous, but I just don't believe there's a dinosaur in town.† â€Å"Rich and famous? I hadn't thought about it. I guess there would be some recognition, wouldn't there?† â€Å"Look, Gabe, you deal in hard facts, but every day I deal with the delusions and constructions of people's minds. They are just tracks on the ground, probably like that Bigfoot hoax in Washington a few years ago. Theo is a chronic drug user, and Estelle and her boyfriend Catfish are artist types. They all have overactive imaginations.† Gabe was put off by her judgment of Theo and the others. He thought for a second, then said, â€Å"As a biologist, I have a theory about imagination. I think it's pretty obvious that fear – fear of loud noises, fear of heights, the capacity to learn fear – is something that we've adapted over the years as a survival mechanism, and so is imagination. Everyone thinks that it was the big strong caveman who got the girl, and for the most part, that may have been true, but physical strength doesn't explain how our species cre-ated civilization. I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore sur-vived to pass his genes on to the next generation. When the big ape men ended up running off the cliff or getting killed while trying to beat a mas-todon into submission with a stick, the dreamer was standing back thinking, †˜Hey, that might work, but you need to run the mastodon off the cliff.' And, then he'd mate with the women left over after the go-getters got killed.† â€Å"So nerds rule,† Val said with a smile. â€Å"But if fear and imagination make you more highly evolved, then someone with paranoid delusions would be ruling the world.† Val was getting into the theory of it now. How strange to talk to a man who talked about ideas, not property and personal agendas. Val liked it. A lot. Gabe said, â€Å"Well, we didn't miss that by far with Hitler, did we? Evolution takes some missteps sometimes. Big teeth worked pretty well for a while, then they got too big. Mastodons' tusks got so large they would snap the animal's neck. And you've probably noticed that there are no saber-toothed cats around anymore.† â€Å"Okay, I'll buy that imagination is an evolutionary leap. But what about depression?† Talking about mental conditions, she couldn't help thinking about what she'd done to her patients. Her crimes circled in her mind, trying to get out. â€Å"Psychiatry is looking more and more at mental conditions from a physical point of view, so that fits. That's why we're treating depres-sion with drugs like Prozac. But what evolutionary purpose is there for depression?† â€Å"I've been thinking about that since you mentioned it at dinner,† Gabe said. He drained his wineglass and moved closer to her on the couch, as if by being closer, she would share in his excitement. He was in his element now. â€Å"A lot of animals besides humans get depressed. Higher mammals like dolphins and whales can die from it, but even rats seem to get the Blues. I can't figure out what purpose it serves. But in humans it might be like nearsightedness: civilization has protected a biological weakness that would have been weeded out by natural dangers or predators.† â€Å"Predators? How?† â€Å"I don't know. Depression might slow the prey down, make it react less quickly to danger. Who knows?† â€Å"So a predator might actually evolve that preyed on depressed animals?† Right and it's me, Val thought. If I haven't been preying on depressed people, what have I been doing? She suddenly felt ashamed of her home, of the pure materialism of it. Here was an incredibly bright man who was concerned with the pure pursuit of knowledge, and she had sold her integrity for some antiques and a Mercedes. Gabe poured himself another glass of wine and sat back now, thinking as he spoke. â€Å"Interesting idea. I suppose there could be some sort of chemical or behavioral stimulus that would trigger preying on the depressed. Low serotonin levels tend to raise libido, right? At least temporarily?† â€Å"Yes,† Val said. That's why the entire town has turned into horndogs, she thought. â€Å"Therefore,† Gabe continued, â€Å"you'd have more animals mating and passing on the depression gene. Nature tends to evolve mechanisms to remain in balance. A predator or a disease would naturally evolve to keep the depressed population down. Interesting, I've been feeling especially horny lately, I wonder if I'm depressed.† Gabe's eyes snapped open wide and he looked at Val with the full-blown terror of what he had just said. He gulped his wine, then said, â€Å"I'm sorry, I†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Val couldn't stand it anymore. Gabe's faux pas opened the gate, and she stepped through it. â€Å"Gabe, we have to talk.† â€Å"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She grabbed his arm to stop him. â€Å"No, I have to tell you something.† Gabe braced himself for the worst. He'd fallen out of the lofty world of theory into the awkward, gritty world of first dates, and she was going to drop the â€Å"Don't get the wrong idea† bomb on him. She gripped his arm and her nails dug into his bicep hard enough to make him wince. She said, â€Å"A little over a month ago, I took almost a third of the people in Pine Cove off antidepressants.† â€Å"Huh?† That wasn't at all what he'd expected. â€Å"My God, why?† â€Å"Because of Bess Leander's suicide. Or what I thought was her suicide. I was just going through the motions in my practice. Writing prescriptions and collecting fees.† She explained about her arrangement with Winston Krauss and how the pharmacist had refused to put everyone back on the drugs. When she finished, to wait for his judgment, there were tears welling up in her eyes. He put his arms around her tentatively, hoping it was the right thing to do. â€Å"Why tell me this?† She melted against his chest. â€Å"Because I trust you and because I have to tell someone and because I need to figure out what to do. I don't want to go to jail, Gabe. Maybe all my patients didn't need to be on antidepressants, but a lot of them did.† She sobbed on his shoulder and he began to stroke her hair, then pushed up her chin and kissed her tears. â€Å"It'll be okay. It will.† She looked up into his eyes, as if looking for a hint of disdain, then not finding it, she kissed him hard and pulled him on top of her on the couch. A Higher Power And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? – Revelation 13:4 Twenty-three Steve What horrors can a dragon dream? A creature who has, in his own way, ruled the planet for millions of years, a creature for whom the mingy man mammals have built temples, a creature who has known no predator but time – what could he possibly dream that would frighten him? Call it the knowing? Under a stand of oak trees, sexually satisfied and with a bellyful of drug dealers, the dragon dreamed a vision of time past. The eternal now that he had always known suddenly had history. In the dream he saw himself as a larva, tucked into the protective pouch under his mother's tongue until it was safe to venture out under her watchful eye. He saw the hunting and the mating, the forms he had learned to mimic as his mercurial DNA evolved not through generations, but through regeneration of cells. He saw the mates he had eaten, the three young he had borne as a female, the last killed by a warmblood who sang the Blues. He remembered the chan-ging, not so long ago, from female to male, and he remembered all of it in pictures, not in mere instinctual patterns and conditioned responses. He saw these pictures in the dream, brought on by the strange mating with the warmblood, and he wondered why. For the first time in his five thousand years, he asked, Why? And the dream answered with a picture of all the oceans and swamps, the rivers and bogs and trenches and mountains beneath the sea, and they were all empty of his kind. As sure as if he were floating through the cold black at the end of the universe, where light gives up hope and time chases its tail until it dies from exhaustion, he was alone. Sex does that to some guys. Val â€Å"Oh my God, the rat brains!† Gabe shouted. It was a different response to lovemaking. Val wasn't sure that she might not be hurt, feeling vulnerable as she was, with her knees in the vicinity of her ears, a biologist on top of her, and her panty hose waving off one foot like a tattered battle flag. Gabe collapsed into her arms and she looked over his shoulder to the coffee table to check that they hadn't kicked the wineglasses off onto the carpet. â€Å"Are you okay?† she asked, a little breathless. â€Å"I'm sorry, but I just realized what's going on with this creature.† â€Å"That's what you were thinking about?† Yes, her feelings were definitely hurt. â€Å"No, not during. It came to me in a flash right after. Somehow the creature can attract mammals with lower than normal serotonin levels. And you've got, what, a third of the population running around in antidepressant withdrawal?† She was pissed now, not hurt. She dumped him off her onto the floor, stood up, pulled her skirt down, and stepped away. He scrambled into his pants and looked around for his shirt, which lay in shreds behind the couch. He had a tan that ended at the neckline and just below the shoulders; the rest of him was milk white. He looked up at her from the gap between the couch and the coffee table with a pleading in his eyes, as if he were looking up from a coffin in which he was about to be buried alive. â€Å"Sorry,† he said. He wasn't looking her in the eye, and Val suddenly realized that he was talking to her exposed breasts. She pulled her blouse closed, and a battery of insults rose in her mind, ready to be fired, but all of them were mean-spirited and would serve to do nothing but make them both feel ashamed. He was who he was, and he was honest and real, and she knew that he hadn't meant to hurt her. So she cried. Thinking, Great, crying is what got me into this in the first place. She plopped down on the couch with her face in her hands. Gabe moved to her side and put his arm around her. â€Å"I'm really sorry. I'm not very good at this sort of thing.† â€Å"You're fine. It's just too much.† â€Å"I should go.† He started to stand. She caught his arm in a death grip. â€Å"You go and I'll hunt you down and kill you like a rabid dog.† â€Å"I'll stay.† â€Å"No go,† she said. â€Å"I understand.† â€Å"Okay, I'll go.† â€Å"Don't you dare.† She threw her arms around him and kissed him hard, pulling him back down onto the couch, and within seconds they were all over each other again. That's it, she thought, no more crying. It's the crying that does it. This guy is aroused by my pain. But soon they lay in a panting sweaty pile on the floor and the idea of crying was light-years away. And this time Gabe said, â€Å"That was wonderful.† Val noticed a wineglass overturned by her head, a cabernet stain bleeding over the carpet. â€Å"Is it salt or club soda?† Gabe pulled away far enough to look into her eyes and saw that she was looking at the stained carpet. â€Å"Salt and cold water, I think. Or is that blood?† A drop of sweat dripped off his forehead onto her lips. She looked at him. â€Å"You weren't thinking about that creature that doesn't exist, were you?† â€Å"Just you.† She smiled. â€Å"Really?† â€Å"And a weed-whacker, for some reason.† â€Å"You're kidding.† â€Å"Uh, yes, I'm kidding. I was only thinking of you.† â€Å"So you don't think I'm a horrible person for what I've done?† â€Å"You were trying to do what you thought was right. How could that be horrible?† â€Å"I feel horrible.† â€Å"It's been a long time. I'm out of practice.† â€Å"No, not about this. About my patients. You really think something could be preying on them?† â€Å"It's just a theory. There may not even be a creature.† â€Å"But what if there is? Shouldn't we call the National Guard or something?† â€Å"I was thinking of calling Theo.† â€Å"Theo isn't even a real cop.† â€Å"He deserves to know.† They lay there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the spreading stain on the carpet, feeling the sweat run down their ribs, and listening to the beat of each other's hearts. â€Å"Gabe?† Val whispered. â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"Maybe we should go to couples' counseling.† â€Å"Should we get dressed first?† â€Å"You were serious about the weed-whacker, weren't you?† â€Å"I don't know where that image came from.† â€Å"There's supposed to be a good couples' guy in San Junipero, unless you'd rather go to a woman counselor.† â€Å"I thought we were going to call the National Guard.† â€Å"Only if it comes to that,† Val said. Thinking, When we tell the shrink about this, I'm leaving out the part about the wine spilling. Theo Is there anything more irritating than people who have just been laid? Especially when you have not. Not for a long time. Oh, it was obvious as soon as they came through Molly's front door, waking Theo for the second time that night: Gabe's grin looking like the oversized grill on an old Chrysler, Val Riordan wearing jeans and almost no makeup; the both of them giddy and giggling and blushing like children. Theo wanted to puke. He was happy for them, but he wanted to puke. â€Å"What?† Theo said. Gabe was obviously amped and trying not to show it. He put his hands in his pockets to keep from waving them around. â€Å"I† – he looked at Val and smiled – â€Å"we think that this creature, if it exists, may be attracted to prey with low serum serotonin levels.† Gabe bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited for his statement to sink in. Theo sat there, staring at him, with no discernible change in expres-sion from the weariness he'd worn since they came through the door. He guessed that he was supposed to say something now. â€Å"Molly was here,† Theo said. â€Å"The creature exists. It ate Mikey Plotznik, and Joseph Leander, and who knows who else? She said it's a dragon.† Gabe's grin dropped. â€Å"That's great. I mean, that's horrible, but it's great from a scientific point of view. I have another theory about this species. I think it has some specialized mechanism to affect its prey. Have you been horny lately?† â€Å"There's no need to be arrogant, Gabe. I'm glad you two had a good time, but there's no need to rub it in.† â€Å"No no, you don't get it.† Gabe went on to explain about Val Riordan's decision to take her patients off antidepressants and how the lowering of serotonin levels could lead to increased libido. â€Å"So Pine Cove has been full of horny people.† â€Å"Right,† Theo said. â€Å"And I still can't get a date.† Val Riordan laughed and Theo glared at her. Gabe said, â€Å"The rats I found alive near this trailer, where we think the creature might have been, were mating when I found them. There are some species of carnivorous plants that give off a sex pheromone that attracts their prey. In some species, the behavior of the male – a display, a dance, a scent – will stimulate the ovaries in the female of the species without any physical contact. I think that's what's happened to us.† â€Å"Our ovaries are being stimulated?† Theo rubbed sleep from his eyes. â€Å"I gotta be honest with you, Gabe. I'm not feeling it.† Val turned to Gabe. â€Å"That's not very romantic.† â€Å"It's incredibly exciting. This may be the most elegant predator that the world has ever seen.† Theo shook his head. â€Å"I have no home, no job, no car, there's probably a warrant out for my arrest, and you want me to be excited over the fact that we have a monster in town that makes you horny so he can eat you? Sorry, Gabe, I'm missing the positive side of this.† Val chimed in, â€Å"It may be the reason that you've been able to quit smoking pot so easily.† â€Å"Pardon me? Easily?† Theo wanted to jump off the couch and bitch-slap them both. â€Å"Were you ever able to go this long before?† â€Å"She could be right, Theo,† Gabe said. â€Å"If this thing affects serotonin, it could affect other neurotransmitters.† â€Å"Oh good,† Theo said. â€Å"Let's open a detox clinic. We'll feed half of the patients to the monster and the other half will recover. I can't wait.† â€Å"There's no need to be sarcastic,† Gabe said. â€Å"We're just trying to help.† â€Å"Help? Help with what? Bar fight? I can handle it. Skateboard theft? I'm on it. But my law enforcement experience hasn't prepared me for dealing with this.† â€Å"That's true, Gabe,† Val said. â€Å"Theo's little more than a rent-a-cop. Maybe we should call the sheriff or the FBI or the National Guard.† â€Å"And tell them what?† Theo asked. Rent-a-cop? I'm not even that now, he thought. â€Å"He has a point.† Gabe said. â€Å"We haven't seen anything.† â€Å"That old Blues singer has,† Val said. Theo nodded. â€Å"We need to find him. Maybe he'll†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"He's living with Estelle Boyet,† Val said. â€Å"I have her address in my office.†

Charles Mingus Use of Bass Guitar

Charles Mingus, a man who had made many contributions to the jazz world, which had included the introduction of the stand-up-bass as a lead instrument where it normally was used to keep time. He is known for composing the second largest amount of pieces just second to Duke Ellington2. He had mainly focused on collective organization when writing is charts that were similar to old school New Orleans street jazz bands, and his peers had once called him an organizational genius for this.Mingus’s pieces are known to be very temperamental meaning the music would go from very loud at times, to soft soothing sections, which got him the nickname â€Å"the angry man of jazz†. Mingus was born on April 22nd, 1922 and raised in Watts, California to a very religious family1. He had started out his musical career by learning to play the piano from his mother, which led him to playing at his local church1 as his musical wisdom began to expand. For most of his childhood he was only alo ud to listen to worship music, seeing how at the time since jazz was viewed as music of the devil due to its association with booze, and drugs.But at times he would sneak away from his studies in religious music and listen to his idol the world renowned Duke Ellington. He made his transition from the piano to the standup bass when he moved to New York and studied with H. Rheinhagen and the principal bassist Lloyd Reese from the New York Philharmonic School1. Mingus’s music was a mixture of Avant-Garde with an incorporation of Gospel, which left him room for breakthroughs in his music. During the 1940s, when Mingus had made the most progress in his work he had wrote such works that were covered by Lionel Hampton, specifically the album Mingus Fingers.In that album Mingus had used the bass as a lead instrument. People during this time period found it strange that a bass took lead, since it was standard for the bass to keep time, but Mingus revolutionized it with his ability to improvise within his solos, which he learned from Ornette Coleman. An excellent example of this would be his soloing in the song â€Å"Goodbye Pork Pie Hat†. Lester Young had inspired Mingus to record this song since their sounds were so different from each other’s. Despite his success he still minimal reviews from his record company and was not making nough money to support himself. Towards the beginning of the early 50s Mingus had migrated east to New York City to pursue a career to help make him some money to live on. He became a postal worker delivering mail in 1949 and through this job he met what would be his long time drummer Max Roach. Mingus had scored his first concert since his move from L. A. In 1952 Roach scored a gig at Massey Hall in Toronto where many of the greats would be playing such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Roach himself.This jumpstarted Mingus’s career again and segued him into bebop. Although Mingus viewed bebop as a very straight forward beat (from a bassists perspective) and didn’t like the thought of playing such a simple beat when asked to solo like most bassists of the time which was described as a â€Å"boom boom boom†¦Ã¢â‚¬ 4 feel to it, this is where he developed the usage of playing with three fingers instead of the customary two3 which became part of his signature sound.Mingus’s masterwork, which is called â€Å"Epitaph†, would take two hours to perform with the 4000 measures that it covered over the course of time. This work of art was discovered while his music was being processed into CD’s at the time3. Even the New York Times had marked it as the most memorable of jazz pieces of all time5. His chart was also known as the best composition since the times of Duke Ellington making him again even more like his idol3.When the music had finally come to and end on January 5, 1979 when Mingus passed away he had left this world with many new sounds for us to appreciate and to learn from. His sound had changed as he aged and so did his style to adapt to the times. He had revolutionized an instrument at one point only thought to keep time and he added the idea of playing with more than two fingers paving the way for many new bass players to learn from. Mingus was in fact an extraordinary musician and had ever-changed jazz for the better.

Comparative religion Essay

When classifying the world’s major religions they can easily be split up into two groups: Eastern religions and Western religions. The Eastern religions consist of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. The Western religions consist of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Almost all of these religions have come about within existing religious frameworks. Eastern and Western religions share many qualities while differing in many as well. Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism are monistic, meaning they see god in all things. The Eastern mind sees God everywhere, in all things, and sees everything as sacred. Their ultimate reality is an entity and not necessarily a god. â€Å"God† is not personal and not to be thought of as a brother or father, but as so much more. Eastern religions see one kind of reality. They view all beings as equal in value. The individual is not actually real and the separateness of humans from creation and from one another is an illusion to be overcome. Human nature is viewed as naturally ignorant and we better ourselves by being enlightened. Following dharma is the good life, which is being in harmony with universal order through personal duty. In Eastern religions, enlightenment is attained within the individual. In Buddhism, it is nirvana; In Hinduism, it is the yoga; In Taoism, it is wu wei. Reincarnation is a central belief; so some things are not that big of a deal, such as justice or injustice. They believe there is one true god and all religions speak of him. There are many paths to god. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic faiths, which mean they believe in one god. The Western mind considers it heresy to believe that God pervades all things, and makes a strong difference between what is sacred and what is profane. The god of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is a god of history not of nature, the world reflects him but he isn’t to be found in it. God is personal and tended to be thought of in terms of what we know, such as a father figure, etc. Western religions are dualistic, meaning there are two kinds of reality, material and non-material. It is viewed as heaven and hell. Each of these western religions believes that humans are here to submit themselves to god. There are sharp distinctions made between humans and the rest of the natural world. The individual is the same throughout eternity, and the separateness of humans from creation and from one another  is real and permanent. Human nature is viewed as sinful and we become better by taking control of our sinful nature. The good life is obeying the laws of god. In Western religions, enlightenment is attained through significant people conveying god’s word to the ordinary people. This occurred through the prophets Adam, Abraham, Moses, Muhammad, Jesus. There is only one chance at life, and this is probably why Western religions seem to have more emphasis on justice. They believe there is only one true god and one true religion and all non-believers will spend eternity in â€Å"hell.† Eastern and Western religions also share many traits. Each of the groups has come about within other religions. Buddhism grew out of Hinduism, and Christianity and Islam grew out of Judaism. Each believes there is more to reality than what we experience with our senses. Eastern and Western religions alike have specific creeds, guidelines, doctrines or orderliness. Hinduism has the Bhagavad-Gita; Buddhism has the four noble truths; Christianity has the Bible; Judaism has the Hebrew Bible and the Torah; and Islam has the Koran. In the texts of these religions, many of the stories are moral stories meant to help us and not always factual. In these Eastern religions, they all meditate and reach a state of enlightenment. These Western religions all pray to god and have faith that god will help and have mercy on them. Each gains a better sense of self although by different means. They each teach to have compassion, love your fellow man, help those less fortunate, and live the best life you can. The most important similarities would be the thought and knowledge of existence outside of our realities. Morals are also where they balance with each other. Man’s destiny is viewed by both groups as lying in his own hands. Man can choose to enlighten himself or save himself, or choose not to. These are the most significant views shared. This is where they share the most common ground. The most important differences would be that eastern religions see truth in all religions and western religions see truth only in their religion. The way natural things are viewed set the groups apart significantly. Eastern religions see everything having value and western religions see only people  having value and nothing else. Western religions have had prophets to speak god’s word. Eastern religions say everyone can reach ultimate reality. These are the ideas that separate eastern religions and western religions so greatly. There are some common themes in all religions. All religious beliefs allow us to understand and categorize our world and our place in it. There is value in all religions that honor life and individuals potential. They are all concerned with ultimate reality, only seen from different angles. A common theme is charity. All religions emphasize charity and helping out those who need it. Happiness is a common theme, which is what is drawn together from religious experience. Wisdom is attained as a result of religion and its practice. The Eastern religions could teach the Western religions tolerance. Western religions only see themselves as â€Å"right† and dismiss all other views. This is not easily justified and just reaffirms eastern thought that humans are naturally ignorant. So that alone discredits the assumption on the western part that they are â€Å"right.† The Western religions could teach Eastern religions about dualism. One could say that although this reality is a certain way, who is to say that the next or continual one will be similar? They could see dualism within the reality. My approach to religion was greatly affected by my upbringing. I was raised as a Baptist. I blindly followed just as all children do. When I reached the â€Å"Age of Reason†, I took a serious look at the faith and came to my own conclusions. I figure that if the way I learned it is the way that it is, then there is no use in practicing it. If god is vengeful and could damn me to hell for eternity, then I don’t want anything to do with him. That certainly does not sound Supreme to me. I have a hard time believing the doctrine that we were created for the sole purpose of serving him and fighting down the human spirit. I would rather try to see life as being something to enjoy and make the most of it. I am considered â€Å"agnostic† and do not know where most men are sure. I feel that most organized religion has been around to control and limit people. Eastern religions appeal to me  because they are not necessarily based on doctrine. I view all beings as equal, t ry to live a good life, and don’t attempt to speak of things that I cannot conceive. Religion is definitely becoming more of a tolerable subject among those who are intolerable. The persecution of religious groups seems to be slowing down, very slowly. The future of religion is identical to the future of human existence. As long as human beings are around, they will use religion to place themselves in this world and understand themselves. As humans, we tend to be very self-important and make ourselves feel better about ourselves, and give ourselves meaning so we do not feel that we do not have a significant place in the world.

Real Time Kinematic GPS (RTK GPS) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Real Time Kinematic GPS (RTK GPS) - Essay Example Both of the receivers have their coordinates; the coordinates of the first reference receiver can be determined in a geocentric frame while the second’s in relation to the first receiver. The combined data of the two receivers is used by the mobile control device algorithms to work out the uncertainty of integers in order to calculate accurate positioning information. Wubbena, et al. (1996) informs that the precision and consistency of RTK solution reduces with adding distance from the reference station. Virtual Reference Station or VRS is a concept that is interrelated to RTK. The figure about the conceptualization of VRS indicates the reference stations of GPS, which work at a distance of seventy kilometres. There is a communication network established between the reference stations through which, data is transferred from one station to other. According to Higgins (2001), the data that is received on the central computer from reference stations results in the modelling of spatial errors due to which, the working of GPS is restricted. As far as users are concerned, they think that it is because of the roving receivers that transfer a mobile call to the central computer due to which, the position of GPS is approximated and corrections are demanded. After this processing, the central computer is able to make corrections on the basis of the coordinates of roving receiver and reference receiver. In order to get more precise results and to make the value of dimensions much authentic and for the lessening of the problems due to which, restrictions are there in terms of survey of RTK, much improved impression of VRS survey is created. According to Cislowski and Higgins (2006), the VRS RTK technique is able to augment the productivity to nearly thirty to fifty percent. In addition, the time needed for procedures and people required for the jobs according to a human resource

Business Decision Making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Business Decision Making - Essay Example Reason for colleting the primary and secondary data for the given business problem helps to reach the authentic decision to advice the clients in Spain, France and Italy. As the manager of the company, preparation of most suitable plan for primary and secondary data collection is very much necessary. â€Å"Data Collection helps your team to assess the health of your process. To do so, you must identify the key quality characteristics, you will measure, how you will measure them, and what you will do with the data you collect† (Module 7: Data Collection n.d. p. 1). Here I am working for the manager of a property company in UK and also at the same time our company deals with properties in other places like Spain, France and Italy. There are more than 100 clients, who are  interested in buying properties particularly in Spain. That’s the reason why, all these countries are frequently asking questions regarding the property. Taking in to the mind the respondents, it is th e best way to get the information appropriate. This enables to understand various revealed complexities. Primary Data:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Primary research method is one of the widely used methods to collect information from the respondents in order to make the proper decision regarding the sell or renting the property.   The primary methods are used to make the most appropriate decision and also to give advice to the overseas Questioners and survey. Primary research has been selected for the reason that primary research offers the creative information that is required for the function of the study and is primarily required for the study. It is prepared by gathering of primary information. Questionnaires Method:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Questionnaires method is one of methods used to gather information from the target customers to acquire the relevant information. A questionnaire is one of the well-built research apparatus and it encloses the various questions and some of the other suitable matters for the reason of gathering data's from clients. After the information collected from the questionnaire, next step is to study the information with the help tables and charts. The structuring of questionnaire is on the score base, which facilitates the respondent to take the appropriate decision. Majority of the questions in this are based on given situation. This supports the foreign countries to respond without doubt. The questionnaire is arranged in a simple way, which makes him to pursue the pattern in an easy way. Most of the questions are arranged in a simple way, to help the clients to follow the questions easily. Questionnaires consist of 10 main questions that will helps to make the most appropriate decision. The structuring of questionnaire should be cautiously designed in accordance to the preconditions of accuracy and relevance. Questionnaires are an appraisal method, which is very well-known to most educators. â€Å"Questionnaires, paper or elec tronic, consist of a set of questions or items that are designed for a selected group of people, such as teachers, administrators, parents, students, or others. Questionnaires vary in length, focus, and types of items, such as checklists, scaled items or open-ended questions and are particularly useful in gathering data from large groups of people about perceptions, attitudes, intended actions or application of learning† (Preparing to Collect Data n.d.).    Survey Method:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Surveys are one of the approaches used to gather the data's to investigate and make a proper idea regarding the business problem. It is the method that the majority of the organizations use to collect the clients view on given subject. â€Å"The Survey method is the technique of gathering data by asking questions to people, who are thought to have desired information. A formal

The Mobile Phone Market in China Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

The Mobile Phone Market in China - Essay Example At the same time, there is a heavy reliance on group affiliation and group membership in China that continues to feed growing consumption demand ratios for mobile phone products as a means to stay connected with other Chinese family members and peer acquaintances. There is also a growing demand for mobile services in the business environment for executives and generic employees alike, representing a whole different market segment other than just the middle class Chinese buyer. Therefore, there are multiple market segments that are available for targeting which will require the creation of an integrated marketing campaign for business and generic consumer markets. China, however, is a saturated market for mobile phone marketers, with such competition as Nokia, Motorola, Toshiba, Panasonic and other local Chinese manufacturers under partnership with NEC and other Chinese service providers (Myers & Yuan, 2008; Wang, 2005). This must be taken under consideration prior to market entry as unit volumes of competitor mobile phones have exceeded 134 million in 2008 (Fu, 2007). Subscribership to mobile services of varying variety has reached 480 million in China by 2008, a 20 million unit increase since 2007 (Fu). Thus, in order to be competitive in this market, the business must develop a marketing strategy that targets key demographics using a marketing strategy that is differentiated from competition and caters to local market needs. In 2006, Mitsubishi was forced to exit the Chinese mobile market due to a lack of acceptable market presence and failure to adopt marketing strategy to fit the local Chinese consumer (Myers & Yuan, 2008). Toshiba also was forced out of the market in 2006 after a joint venture with Nanjing Patina Wang Zhi Corporation was unable to meet market demand (Myers & Yuan). These are important factors to consider that have opportunities for new market entry and also to illustrate the importance of consumer influence in the Chinese mobile market. De spite the saturated presence of competition, research has identified much significant potential for revenue growth in China if the business develops an appropriate integrated strategy that targets multiple buying groups. The goal is to maintain an image of local market fluency that fits the psychographic profile of Chinese consumers related to their lifestyle, preferences, and social tendencies. This report provides research data on the Chinese consumer, the mobile market, competitive practices, and describes opportunities for short-run and long-run revenue growth in this difficult NIC market with ample consumer market availability. To succeed in China, the business must be flexible, innovative, and also invest considerable capital into promotion and advertising. 2. Background analysis on China The Chinese market currently maintains a 34.5 percent growth in mobile phone usership, with an increase of 20 million year to year in subscribership to mobile services (Fu, 2007). Growth in m obile phone usage has occurred by new industrial developments, new job opportunities, and also the balance of payments equilibrium that exists in China associated with import and export volumes and capital expenditures. The Chinese government maintains a significant trade surplus with other countries, but is able to offset this through capital outflows into foreign investment (Warren & Keegan, 2009). China has been

Music from Baroque to Romantic Period Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Music from Baroque to Romantic Period - Essay Example Classical music is a category of music composed and produced in and embedded in the traditions of the western practices and secular music. In addition it is characterized by the use of wind instruments. This period led to the growth of a variety of presentation and style, Piano as the primary keyboard instrument and types of music composition. Music writing on chambers became more common and involved many performers like 8-10, Opera become recognized in countries such as Italy, France and Germany speaking states and humorist opera became common. Major composers during this period were Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, Clive, Peter. †¨Mozart was classic music composer, conductor and violinist and music teacher between 1719 -1787.Beethoven was a music composer and pianist from Germany and an influential composer world wide. Initially he was not a composer as he spent most of his time playing the piano and violin under the assistance of Joseph Hayden who was an Austrian most famous and creative music composer from 1732-1809 of classic rhymes especially in courts where he sang for rich Hungarians. Due to his significant role he was commonly called father of symphony and string quartet. Further, he was influential in the growth of piano trio and growth of sonata form, Clive, P. Romantic music was distinguished by melody and rhythm, expressive and emotional aspects. In the 19th century it was commonly referred as the period of the period of classical music in Europe since it is the era when Ludwig wrote his Erotic Symphony.

Internaional Business Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Internaional Business - Article Example Normally, it is the last stage of the distribution process. Understanding the customer perceptions will help retailers to know about the nuances of marketing. Every retailer has to primarily identify his target market and the needs and expectations of that market and subsequently try to meet those expectations with efficient service. This is what exactly Costco is doing. Promotional strategies that are adopted by a retailer include different forms of communication to attract customer to the retail outlet. For example, in the case of Costco, the 'buy-in' strategy that the company adopted is a promotional strategy. The company bought as much inventory as possible after Procter and Gamble announced a price hike of 6%. This would help the company to hold stock for the future when other players would buy the same stock at a higher price. The face of the retailing industry has undergone significant global changes over the past two decades. Retailing has always focused on offering the best quality products to customers. Every retailer wants to offer the customers the right products at the right time at the right place and at the right price. Pricing the products and services might be a routine hob for most producers and retailers, but it involves a thorough and a deep understanding of the principles and practices governing the business environment. Adopting the right pricing strategy helps a company achieve its objective. To sustain and achieve its objectives in the competitive market, a company should adopt the most effective pricing mechanism. Thus, pricing is very important to a marketer. Before adopting a pricing strategy, certain factors like the demand for the product or service in the market, customers' perception, the sustainable margin, the image of the company in the market etc. Pricing is a very important aspect of the firms' existence and hence, firms must develop proper pricing strategies and convert them into effective competitive advantages. Pricing is the biggest challenge that marketers face, and quite often, they may feel that they have not set the right price. This may be due to several reasons. One of the most important is that prices are dependent on market factors. The sales of a product have an impact on the pricing mechanism. However, the sales of a product can increase because it has been priced too low and not because it has been priced right. Setting the right price can have a substantial impact on the profits of the firm. Costco is using the market penetration pricing strategy to attract customers. It is only a few products that can be called truly innovative products. Such products come into the market infrequently. Most of the times products introduced are copies of existing products with slight modifications. /firms try new approaches to attract customers who have many similar products to choose from. They employ sales promotions, membership cards, sponsorships, etc. to attract customers. Costco admits that more than half of its revenue is form membership fees. Firms resort to price cuts, and offer products below their competitors' prices to take away a large number of customers form their competitors. This is the strategy that Costco has adopted. The expectation in offering products at low prices is that one customers use the product, they will develop an interest in the product

Critically evaluate the claim that adolescents and young people both Essay

Critically evaluate the claim that adolescents and young people both today and in earlier time periods have always been demonise - Essay Example When an understanding of an adolescent/young people has been established, examples will be shown of how and why they have been/ are seen by adults in ways that demonise them and represent them negatively. The writer will then explore the ramifications of the adults' perception and the impact they have on young people. As a conclusion this perception leads to how and why adults might perceive young people and adolescents to be unruly and/or a threat to social stability. The need to analyse the different stages of age is contributed to society's concept of age. Some societies in history considered the transition from childhood to adulthood without passing through adolescence. Childhood is defined as the stage in life from birth to 12 years of age. Childhood is not considered as having a natural transition point but it is a continual process of development. Aries (1960:128) â€Å"In medieval society the idea of childhood did not exist; this is not to suggest that children were neglecte d, forsaken or despised. The idea of childhood is not to be confused with affection for children: it corresponds to an awareness of the particular nature of childhood, which distinguishes the child from the young adult. In medieval society there was a lack of awareness. Emile Durkheim (as cited in Jenks, 1982:147) goes on to describe the child as â€Å"the purist of beings, a small body that the merest blow can break, that the slightest illness imperils, a collection of muscles, nerves and organs which are, so to speak, made of milk and which only form, develop and increase in strength by their beings placed in a wonderful environment of careful attention, of consideration, of favourable circumstances and protective influences†. ... rest blow can break, that the slightest illness imperils, a collection of muscles, nerves and organs which are, so to speak, made of milk and which only form, develop and increase in strength by their beings placed in a wonderful environment of careful attention, of consideration, of favourable circumstances and protective influences†. In Romeo and Juliet, a maiden was a young woman who was ready for marriage, having obviously reached puberty implicitly implying "menses" but still having her nurse. Shakespeare portrays young people/children as wilily or in need of protection because of the adults perception of having a family grudge. Biologically speaking , a child is defined not having sexual hormones in other words not having reached puberty. He/she is not an adolescent, no having reached Erikson's stage of identity and role confusion. (Erikson, 1959) Saraga (1998 and Macionis & Plummer, 2005) points out that historically children have been seen either as innocent (Montgomery , 2003) , vulnerable and in need of protection; or they have been seen as asocial, inherently evil and in need of firm control and discipline. In early Christianity both concepts are present suggesting that the child is innocent (Pollock, 1983) or that the child is born in a state of original sin (Powell , 1917; Schucking, 1969). The child, who was born wicked and full of sin, needed to have the wickedness removed through punishment or strong discipline. (Pollock, 1983) Rituals such as Baptism or Christening continue today to symbolize the purification of babies and small children. Demonising or representing children or young people negatively in a religious context, was used as a form of control and a reasoning for punishment. In art work, representing adolescents and young people in a less

Futuristic Theory in Designs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Futuristic Theory in Designs - Essay Example The future of technology is still promising. Futurologists have used designs to predict today’s impossibility that may become a reality tomorrow. The challenges and problems are many and require people to think beyond the current situation. Given that the problems can be predicted, designs can be used to predict the preferable solutions and alternatives for future problems.   The Foragers, Stop and Scan, Afterlife and EM Listeners will be the designs that will be analysed in the paper. The four designs are a representative of four significant concerns: the state of food security when the globe is overpopulated as represented by Foragers, dilemma of insecurity posed by terrorism as represented by Stop and Scan and EM Listeners. Finally, Afterlife is meant to be used domestically when euthanasia will become so common that it will be allowed in private homes for personal use. The designers in these projects are concerned with the expressive, functional, and communicative possibilities of the emerging technologies as well as the ethical consequences of the technology in social and cultural milieu. The designs, which are presented in photographic forms, are not predictive. They are meant to pose the question, â€Å"what if?† The designs create, imagine, dream and speculate on the technology that can mediate the world preferred by the people. As it will be seen, Dunne and Raby designs classified under the banner â€Å"between reality and the impossible† are a reflection of the complex and troubled people who are ready to explore solutions to the future challenges. The essay will argue that these designs are worth critical consideration and are a wake call by the designers to the concerned stakeholders to see the possibility and or impossibility of the projects and act before it is too late. The essay will propose that more critical designs are supposed to be created considering the technological future of the world. One such design is the one that could predict the future when the resources are completely depleted and the people turn to the unimaginable polythene materials for food. The theory about the future Between Reality and Impossible is a series of designs that Dunne and Raby made and were exhibited at the international design biennial in Saint Etienne (Regine 1). The designers also produced three dimensional designs that have been used to comment on the pressing issues about the development and growth of mankind. As speculative designs, the selected pieces heighten the experiences of the viewers to understand future themes. They depict four different scenarios that speculate on four pressing issues in the globalised society.The future is said to be unpredictable time period after the present, but is can be foreseen based on the present situations (Gaddis 56). The occurrence of the future is inevitable because time and other laws of physics exist. The resulting inevitability of the future has prompted the present to classify existence into permanent, temporary, and eternity (Gaddis 56). Permanence refers to that existence that will see the whole of the future while temporary is designated to the existence that will come to an end. The study of future or futurology has been stressed by modern practitioners, especially the emphasis of the prediction of an alternative future that is probable and p referable. Future has been explored through art, cultural practices, designs and other ways. For example, there was a futurism movement during the early 20th century that explored most media of art such as sculptures, theatre, music, architecture, and painting among others for their predictability. During this time, futurists were highly interested in the ideas of the future and were not held captive by the issues of past.

Supervisors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Supervisors - Essay Example This can be promoted through instructive and motivating organizational leadership. The functions of management are discussed, and the traits of effective managers in relation to the management functions. Finally, the relations between managers, supervisors and employees are evaluated and the challenges of a multicultural workforce presented. The Role of a Supervisor in a Typical Organization Supervisors or managers are important in management of teams and processes within an organization. They help in management and coordination of the organization, usually characterized as a pyramid. The supervisors help in achieving essential objectives and goals within the organization through communicating with each other at various levels within the organizational management hierarchy (Cassidy, Kreitner, & Kreitner, 2010). Supervisors are committed to grooming organizational personnel for success. Their roles entail the functional duties coupled with a variety of responsibilities. Organizational supervisors train their workers on new information and competencies. Workers ought to be prepared well to ensure they are successful in their duties, and this can be necessitated through supervisors’ training and orientation. The process of training is continual and highlighted for new personnel as well as other workers. Collectively, the supervisors have a responsibility of ensuring that organizational personnel benefit from intermittent professional development opportunities and training (Cassidy, Kreitner, & Kreitner, 2010). Supervisors evaluate objectives, goals and future organizational needs to enable them prepare plans, which offer the required resources and action items for the organization to realize success. The supervisors help in strategic planning, implementation and execution of organizational plans. In addition, supervisors prepare schedules for appropriate staffing and availability of resources to satisfy the needs of customers and production. They are respon sible for arranging human, informational and material resource productivity. They are tasked with maximizing organizational efficiency through scheduling inventories, equipment and facilities. This ensures that quality in production of goods and offering of services is attained (Cassidy, Kreitner, & Kreitner, 2010). Managers are responsible for inspiring and motivating workers to work appropriately and accomplish common organizational goals. The teams in organizations ought to work collectively, and it is the responsibility of the supervisors to recognize the uniqueness of every employee, establish various incentives and rewards to motivate them (Cassidy, Kreitner, & Kreitner, 2010). Three Traits of an Effective Manager Effective managers need to have entrepreneurial thinking and creativity qualities. Contemporary organizations are continually changing, and there is need for the managers to possess creativity and entrepreneurial skills to work effectively in such environments. Super visors with entrepreneurial traits perform their responsibilities effectively because they adapt swiftly and resolve organizational problems creatively. Supervisors are tasked with maximizing organizational efficiency. This can be best achieved if supervisors are entrepreneurial and creative because such traits would help them to develop new ideas to improve productivity and enhance quality besides increasing profit margins and expanding on the organizational

External World Skepticism Essay Example for Free

External World Skepticism Essay ‘’Locke and Descartes have very different ideas about how to defeat external world skepticism.’’ Whose views are more valid about the realiability of sense perception for understanding the external world? The knowledge, the idea of the existence of external world and the way it is perceived by human being has been controvesy issue for centruies. Descartes and Locke also two very important name who proposed some viewpoint, even it can be said some theories, on the issue. The existence of external world and external bodies are true without us? Or do they exist as long as we perceive them? The idea of existence of external bodies, the knowledge of them can be attained through the way they reach us in any form. The most common and the easiest, as it will be discussed later as the only, way is the senses through them we perceive the material objects and arrive at the information they exist or not. Every existential material being has some spesific physical qualities that appeal to our senses, and through this way we experience them. It is an obvious fact that something that does not exist can do nothing to us or can show no quality to be noticed by us. Famous philospher Descartes also, basically based on this perspective, put forward that what we are perceiving through our senses are the external bodies that caused the ideas in us. As the ideas of external bodies caused in us by their perception through our senses, they exists outside independent of us. This means that whether or not we perceive any material being, it keeps to process of existence. Only, the idea of it, in us, begins with our noticing, perceiving and putting in a place in our mind. To be more clear, the part of it, its existence to us is this: our getting the idea of it. And getting an idea of an objects is provided through experiencing it by our senses independent of our will and desire. When we notice an object it has been realized that it reached us with one or more physical qualifications of it; thus we perceived it through our sense organs and have an idea about its existence. So, tt the very moment we perceive an object, its existence accepted by us in my opi nion. However, Descartes claims that sensory ideas must be produced by some substances other than us as we have a passive faculty of sensory perception and only active faculties can use them. It is worth to noting that it is totally wrong as it is possible our having an idea that produced without us. The ideas are produced, no matter what they are about, in our mind. And, ideas of external things comes into being in our minds just because we can notice them in a way. After their idea, their knowledge is reached with the way their qualities are perceived by senses. On the other hand, Locke makes his theory depend on a more assured ground. The Knowledge of the Existence of any other thing we can have only by Sensations. The only way to know any external thing is to experience it through our sensory organs. Because their realization in our minds or their existence in us is created by the testimony of our sensory organs. It can be said that our understanding of the external things pass through our reliability on our sensations. However, it also is worth to note that whenever we perceive something through our sensory organs, a certain quality of them affects us in a specific way. After their perception realizes in our mind, we makes reasons about them and understand that there are material objects that exists outside, independently. So mean, there are external material things that exists without and independent of us. Furthermore, the knowledge of them can be gained only through sensations and perceptions. First of all, when we face with an object, we perceive it through our sense organs. This perception is moved on to our brain, and with its interpretation of the object, an idea of it takes place in us. For instance, my perception of a book, my knowing of a book is provided me with the certain qualities of it. Its shape and color could be an example for this. It has a shape and a color and i can see it with my eyes, so the idea of the book reach me through the testimony of my eyes. In this example the color and the shape of the book helps me to define it in my mind with some specific qualities. Again, let’s consider a flower which has a good odor and pink color. Using our sensory organs we can ascribe the flower color and odor qualities. In a more detailed way, thanks to its odor i know that there is a thing independent of me which has a color and an odor. It already has been there with its color and odor but we were not aware of it before perceive it. Otherwise, because our sensory organs do not have the capability of producing some senses without getting any stimulus from outside, it would be a fallacy to believe that we create the ideas of external objects in our own mind without their existence, even though in some situations stimulus may leads us to have wrong ideas about the reality. Additionally, it is also another possible situation that we may have the idea of an object, without getting any cause from it at the very that moment depending on past experiences. As an illustration, let’s consider a nomad traveler who passing through a desert. The weather is so hot, everywhere is yellow and the tiredness of walking very long time increases the desire to have some water but he does not have. In this while, within this deprivation he sees a puddle. But as far as he gets close to it, the puddle becomes distant, and the nomad realizes that it is not a real, existed puddle but just a mirage. His eyes tricke him and he sees an object which, in fact, does not exist there at that moment. With the effect of other stimulants like hot weather, yellow color etc. the thirst increases to the extend that it gives rise him to see an unexisted thing as it exists there. The idea of a puddle comes into being in the mind of the nomad at the result of the causes come from the ou tside existed things, but it drags him to be under the illusion of an unexisted thing at that moment. To be more clear, it is not the situation that the nomad sees a never existed thing as existed at that moment; on the contrary, he sees an image of an existed thing which existed in fact on this world, but unexisted there and for that moment. The appearance of a puddle is a consequence of the perception of hot and the vast desert. Perceptions of their being truly creates a false idea of another object. So to speak, her brain plays a game with the nomad and brins up the idea of a previously perceived object. The nomad has the notion of puddle. He has the idea about how a puddle looks like. And at that moment with the wrong association of ideas, he had wrong idea about the puddle’s to be there at that moment. Nonetheless, it does not change the reality that there is a puddle thing outside him and the perception of it realized before, the idea of it comes into being in the mind of the nomad, thus he can recall it among from all the ideas he has thanks to previous perceptions. The perception of the puddle came to existence in a moment his previous life. Consequently, our sensory organs may lead us to have wrong perception in a moment of our life, but it cannot be deniable that this wrong perception also comes from a true perception of the object in another moment, so it exists for another moment even though it does not exist for that moment. Locke has a claim related to this: ‘’ As when our Senses employ’d about any Object, we do know that it does exist; so by our Memory we may be assured, that therefore Things, that affected our senses, have existed. And thus we have knowledge of the past Existence of several things, whereof our senses informed us, our memories still retain the ideas; and of this we are past all doubt, so long as we remember well.’’ We believe the existence of some objects as we have past experiences with them, even though at the moment we think about them we do not have any physical relation with them. Moreover, as another point of view, if it would be thought for things that cann ot be sensed by our sensory organs but material, it can easily be said that it is impossible that there such a being exists, as the material objects are the ones that have some physical qualities that affect us through sensory organs of us. When it comes to abstract things or their ideas in us, the situation is totally different and we cannot be so sure about their existence and we cannot have a definite, true knowledge of them. They are not physical obejcets nor are qualified with the features that can be comprehended through perception. As i agree with him to some extent but do not completely, Locke thinks that the idea of spirits does not make us know that any such thing do exist without us, but Eternal God. And according to him we must believe existence of some spiritual things, even though we cannot perceive and discover them in any way, as God created them and we informed about them with revelation or for other reasons. The spirits or abstracts that we have idea about them are known by us, as some of us experienced them. We are tend to believe in what majority believes. Although we do not perceive them with our own senses, we may be persuaded to have the idea of their existence. It also is related to our beliefs. If God informs us that they exist even though we do not experience them, we may believe as we faithfully trust and obey Him. However, It is not certain that some spirits are around exists. They may be there for the ones who believe in them, and not for the others who do not believe. These kind of knowledge depends on belief and it would not be logical to say something certain about them. Descartes on the other hand, links the knowledge of non-material things to God. According to him, if God had not give us a way to recognize such ‘higher forms’, we has been strongly inclined to believe that bodies produce them. And so if the ideas were transmitted from a source other than corporeal things, God would be a deceiver; and he is not; so bodies exists. This claim again would be true if one believe in God without any doubt, but s/he may not. So it shoul have more logical explanation that do have a common validity for everyone. As i mentioned above, since the ideas of abstracts cannot be thought independent of belief, their existence might be related to the believing them directly. As an example, think about Deism; those who believe in it consider God as the only holly one. They believe in God, but they rejects the religions, reveletion and all the other things which are mentioned in religions as things created by God. So in short, the existence of things other than the material things cannot be known clearly and certainly as they might be accepted by the ones who believe and might not be accepted by the others who rejects. Last but not least, it can be said that having knowledge about any issue begins with knowing and knowing with understanding. To understand something, it is a must that its being left an impact on us in such a way that we perceive it through sensations. Addition to this, it is a fact that an impact comes with a feature that belongs to an object and helps us to perceive the object, thus we comprehend its existence and have the knowledge of it. [ 1 ]. Descartes, Meditations 6 , p 43 in textbook. [ 2 ]. Descartes, Meditations 6 , p 45 in the textbook [ 3 ]. Knowledge of the Existence of other Things p. 630 (in textbook) [ 4 ]. Knowledge of the Existence of other Things (p 636, p 134 in textbook) [ 5 ]. Knowledge of the Existence of other Things (p 637, p 134 in textbook) [ 6 ]. Descartes, Meditations 6, p 45 in textbook.

Porters Five Forces Analysis of Yahoo!

Porters Five Forces Analysis of Yahoo! The World Wide Web brings about new products and services every day for any consumer to access at any time with the simple click of a mouse. Consumers may look at the local weather forecast, find address and phone number of a business, or simply use the Internet for entertainment. All of these activities and many more are all accessible on Yahoo!s website. Terry S. Semel, Chief Executive Officer at Yahoo! and the Porters Five Forces analysis model along with Porters Differentiation strategy helps Yahoo! compete intensely among its competitors. From an internal perspective, Porters Five Forces gives Yahoo! a sustainable competitive advantage by analyzing the Threat of New Entrants, the Bargaining Power of Buyers, the Bargaining Power of Suppliers, the Threat of Substitute Products and Services, and the Intensity of Rivalry among Competitors in an industry. Semel analyzes each piece of Porters Five Forces model to determine the best route for Yahoo! to boost its competitive advantage in the Internet industry. First, Yahoo! analyzes the Threat of New Entrants coming into the Web industry. The Threat of New Entrants refers to the possibility that the profits of established firms in the industry may be eroded by new competitors (Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, 2007, pg. 59). In Yahoo!s industry, it is relatively easy for any firm to have an eye-catching website. A new entrant can be a firm in its beginning years who does not have a significantly large budget, but could better serve consumers wanting specific products or services because of new technology it owns. Distributors and manufacturers may also reach more consumers through the Internet, so they enter the market. Semel bought technology such as the Inktomi search engine for Yahoo! to better serve the Internet world and keep a sustainable competitive advantage using product differentiation to create a higher barrier of entry for those smaller or newly established firms. The second of Porters Five Forces discusses the Bargaining Power of Buyers in an industry. Buyers threaten an industry by forcing down prices, bargaining for higher quality or more services, and playing competitors against each other (Dess, Lumpkin Eisner, 2007, pg. 61). Buyers are generally not loyal to a specific brand of product or service. Buyers have any information available to them 24 hours a day and they use this to their advantage. Consumers want the best deal for them at that time, so they will take a few minutes, click the mouse a few times, and find the best opportunity for their needs. Buyers use this tool to their advantage. It is difficult for suppliers to retain repeat customers because the customers have the opportunity to shop around to best satisfy their quality and price needs. With Yahoo! expanding their search capabilities by adding new features like its alliance with SBC communications, adding WUF Networks Inc., and HotJobs.com, Semel is aiming to keep more of Yahoo!s consumers within the Yahoo! website and prevent them from exiting to search on a competitors sites. The Bargaining Power of Suppliers is another of Porters Forces that Yahoo! needs to keep in mind. Suppliers involve providing products or services to other businesses, therefore use the term B2B-that is, business-to-business (Dess, Lumpkin Eisner, 2007, pg. 285). Yahoo! is an intermediary between some buyers (consumers) and sellers (advertisers) and is business-to-business oriented. Suppliers can make arrangements on the Internet to make searching and buying easier for consumers and prevent them from switching. Yahoo! relies heavily on several different advertisers to keep consumers searching on the Yahoo! site. Semel has built Yahoo! into a site that can offer surfers many different services, with several of them requiring the customer to pay a small fee (Shamsie, pg. 795). The customer is more likely to stay on one site if everything he/she is searching for is there, letting Yahoo! and the advertising supplier profit. Any company in an industry needs to keep a watchful eye for the Threat of Substitute Products and Services. This may be the most important of Porters Five Forces for Yahoo! to stay on top of. Substitutes limit the potential returns of an industry by placing a ceiling on the prices that firms in that industry can profitably charge (Dess, Lumpkin Eisner, 2007, pg. 63). Again, consumers can compare prices, quality, and customer service between companies, but companies can do the same. A firm can research what products and services other firms are selling and make substitute products or services. This is the case for Yahoo!s digital theme part Semel is pushing into effect. AOL and MSN are also envisioning a digital theme part and they have many substantial advantages from competitive software and programs to money on hand. Semel has pushed through with new advanced technology to give Yahoo! the edge they need to compete with companies such as AOL and MSN (Shamsie). The last of Porters Five Forces Model is the Intensity of Rivalry Among Competitors in an Industry (Dess, Lumpkin Eisner, 2007). Because the Internet creates more tools and means for competing, rivalry among competitors is likely to be more intense (Dess, Lumpkin Eisner, 2007, pg. 288). Rivalry among competitors on the Internet is extremely high because technology is constantly changing. New, better software is being introduced every day to give certain companies a competitive advantage and leave others trying to catch up. Google is Yahoo!s biggest competitor, and is regarded as the most prominent search engine in most parts of the world (Shamsie, pg. 796). Semel and his team have been dedicated to increase Yahoo!s search engine capabilities to compete with competitors like Google, MSN, and AOL. Semel has done a wonderful job turning Yahoo! around from the falling company it was before he joined the team. Using Porters Five Forces, Semel has wisely used the companys funds and resources to gain new technology to push Yahoo! to the top of the bar. Implementing Porters Differentiation strategy by building an animated theme park as Yahoo!s Web site to keep people wanting more from Yahoo! might just give Yahoo! the edge it needs to move forward and take over the number one spot for search engines. Differentiation consists of creating differences in the firms product or service offering by creating something that is perceived industrywide as unique and valued by customers (Dess, Lumpkin Eisner, 2007, pg. 169). Differentiation can have a huge influence on customers because of unique service and product offerings and positive brand image (Dess, Lumpkin Eisner, 2007). Semel is creating differentiation through features and technology with Yahoo! having multiple services in one location in Yahoo!s digital theme park. He is building brand image by investing in billion dollar companies like SBC Communications and Inktomi so Yahoo! will have the technology and the freedom to adapt to changes in the fast-paced Internet industry by owning their own technology. Semel is aiming for Yahoo! to be a whole, small world in itself and enticing customers to stay in Yahoo!s website for all of their service and product needs. Semel comments, The more time you spend on Yahoo!, the more apt you are to sample both free and paid services, (Shamsie, pg. 795). The total revenue for Yahoo! leaped tremendously from 2002 to 2003 and continues to rise because of Yahoo!s CEO Terry Semel. Yahoo! hired Semel to pull the company out of ruins and he did so successfully with Michael Porters Five Forces Analysis model and by implementing Porters Differentiation strategy. He acquired excellent technology and made strategic alliances with companies to give Yahoo! a step-up from its competition. Semel is differentiating Yahoo! by building a digital Disneyland-a souped-up theme park for the Internet Age (Shamsie, pg. 792). His goal is to keep current customers in Yahoo!s site by offering everything to fill their needs. The more time a customer spends on a specific site, the more likely he/she is to do business on that sight, letting Yahoo! profit from his/her requests. Semel using Porters Five Forces and the Differentiation strategy continues to push Yahoo! to the top of the leader board. References Dess, G. Gregory, Lumpkin, G.T., Eisner (2007). Strategic Management 3e. McGraw-Hill. Shamsie, Jamal. Yahoo!. Michigan State University, 792-797. Porters Five Forces and Differentiation The Threat of New Entrants Easy for anyone to have eye-catching websites that compete with large companies New entrant can be any firm who will do well because of technological advances Distributors and manufacturers can reach more consumers through the Internet, so they enter the market The Bargaining Power of Buyers Buyers can get information off of Internet about competing products and services Most Internet buyers are not loyal to a specific brand. Want what is good now Suppliers have a hard time keeping loyal customers because they shop around for the best quality, prices, and customer service The Bargaining Power of Suppliers Yahoo! is intermediary between some buyers and sellers B2B oriented Suppliers can make arrangements on the Internet to make searching and buying easier to prevent customers from switching Yahoo! is intermediary between some buyers and sellers B2B oriented Suppliers can make arrangements on the Internet to make searching and buying easier to prevent customers from switching Yahoo! uses several different types of suppliers on their site to keep customers within their walls The Threat of Substitute Products and Services Any company can research and find a better way to accomplish the same task Yahoo! was threatened by AOL and MSN for the theme park The Intensity of Rivalry among Competitors in an Industry Rivalry is very intense because there are many tools and excellent technology for competing firms Google, MSN, and AOL are major rivals Differentiation Huge influence because of the unique services and products Yahoo!s alliance with big companies Yahoo!s buying of outstanding technology Yahoo! wants to keep people in their site. They are more apt to pay a small fee for something if they can stay in one place

Innovation And Technology Management Media Essay

Innovation And Technology Management Media Essay Ever since cameras were developed, it had evolved into many different types. This report will be focusing on the improvement of different types of camera, from film to digital used by consumers. A few case studies of camera makers will also be included to show how innovation affects each company. A camera is a device that captures images and the images were stored in the device or transmitted to another location. These images may be still or moving images. Still images means photograph while moving images can be videos or movies. The term camera was from the word camera obscura which was an early mechanism used to project images. Camera obscura is an optical device which can project surrounding image on a screen and used in drawing and for entertainment. Camera obscura consists of a box with an opening in one side. The light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside causing an image of the scene being reproduced but was turned upside down, with the color and perspective being preserved. The image will then be projected onto a piece of paper and traced which produced a highly accurate representation of the scene. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Camera_obscura_box.jpg/220px-Camera_obscura_box.jpg Figure 1: Drawing of camera obscura A camera may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It generally consists of an enclosed hollow box with an opening in one side for external light to pass through and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other side. Most of the cameras will have a lens being placed at the front of the cameras opening which is used to gather the incoming light and focus all or part of the image to the recording or viewing surface. The sizes of the opening are mostly controlled by using a diaphragm mechanism but some of them will use a fixed size opening. Most of the cameras today use an electronic image sensor for storing photographs on flash memory. Before that, from the 20th century, photographic films were used For a typical still camera, it takes a photo at a time when the user presses the shutter button unless the user uses continuous fire mode. As for a typical movie camera, it continuously takes 24 film frames per second when the shutter is pressed and holds on until the shutter is released. Some movie camera works by pressing the shutter button once and the second time will stop it. http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcThEehclSMeXPhA1DEisnDoFw1w5_YCT5-6TFcNfv5q30kXSs-p-g http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTxh6ovUrXMGAZPP7tlsthvgrJ5jiMvKJD8swHykuo80AdRgOGT Figure 2: Digital still camera Figure 3: Digital movie camera Until today, cameras has evolved from the camera obscura and continued to change through many generations of photographic technology, including daguerreotypes, calotypes, dry plates, film and different types of digital cameras. Background In the past, camera obscura was used by people for drawing or viewing purposes. In 1827, the first permanent photograph was made using a sliding wooden box camera which used the concept of camera obscura to build. Although camera obscura was already available before 1827, there was no way to preserve the images produced by it apart from manually tracing the images. The preservation of the images was made possible after the invention of photographic lapel processes. These preserved images were then being called as photographs. The earliest cameras were of room sized, which were able to accommodate one or more people inside. By Niepces time, the camera technology had gradually evolved. Cameras became more compact, making portable handheld cameras which were suitable for photography possible. Although cameras technology had been keep improving, a camera in its barest form is still simply a light tight container that used a lens with iris, a shutter that has variable speeds and contains a sensitive piece of media. The media is either film or a digital sensor. http://www.photographica.nu/cameracol/dall273.jpg Figure 4: sliding wooden box camera Types of cameras Currently there are different types of camera in the market. The different types of consumers cameras are as following: Digital camera, a camera that takes video or still photographs by recording images on an electronic image sensor Remote camera, a camera placed by a photographer in areas where the photographer generally cannot be Movie camera, a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film Pocket instamatic camera, a series of inexpensive, easy-to-load camera Single-lens reflex camera, a camera that typically uses a mirror and prism system that permits the photographer to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured Twin-lens reflex camera, a type of camera with two objective lenses of the same focal length. Video camera, a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition Camera phone, a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs and video Mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera, a type of digital system cameras equipped with an interchangeable lens. Technology Developments Film Camera When the first camera was invented, it used an engraving which was placed onto a metal plate coated in bitumen and then exposed it to light. The shadowy areas of the engraving will block the light while the whiter areas allowed the light to react with the chemicals on the plate. When the metal plate was placed into a solvent, an image will appear. The photograph required eight hours of light exposure to create and after appearing, it would soon fade away. In 1839, a more convenient and effective method of photography was developed. Daguerres process fixed the image onto a sheet of silver plated copper. The silver surface was polished and coated in iodine to create a surface that was sensitive to light. The plate was then putted in a camera and exposed for a few minutes. After the image was painted by light, the plate was bathed in a solution of silver chloride. This process created a lasting image which would not change even if exposed to light. With this process, daguerreotype cameras were created. The cameras used in the daguerreotype process were made by opticians and instrument makers. The camera had a sliding box design with lens placed in the front box and a smaller box was slid into the back of the larger box. The focus was controlled by sliding the rear box forward or backwards. When the sensitized plate was placed in the camera, the lens cap would be removed to start the exposure. In 1879, the dry plate consisting of a glass negative plate with a dried gelatin emulsion was invented. The dry plates could be stored for a period of time. With this dry processes, hand held camera was now possible as it absorbed light very quickly. In 1888 the box camera which uses dry plate was introduced. The box camera was a wooden, lighted tight box with a simple lens and shutter that was factory filled with film which allows for 100 shots. The photographer pushed the shutter to produce a negative. Once the film was used up, the camera with the film still in it was mailed to the factory where the film was removed from the camera, processed and printed. The camera was then reloaded with film and returned. In 1889 flexible roll film was invented. The film has a base that was flexible, unbreakable and could be rolled. Emulsions coated on a cellulose nitrate film base made the mass produced box camera a reality. In the mid-1914, 35 mm camera was invented. The camera used 35 mm roll film which was developed based on the flexible roll films. In the early 1940s, color films were brought to the market. These films used the modern technology of dye-coupled colors in which a chemical process connects the three dye layers together to create an apparent color image. In 1948, the first Polaroid camera was sold to the public. The camera allows the photographer to create an instant photograph. The disposable camera was introduced in 1986. It was a single use camera which allowed the photographer to take photo until the film was used up. After which the photographer will send the film for processing and the camera would be disposed. Digital Camera Need to group into sub sections of point and shoot (or known as compact digital cameras), Video cams, digital SLR and include camera phones here. For each section, show examples through the use of pictures. In 1981, the first consumer camera was produced by Sony. It takes still photographs by recording image on an electronic image sensor. Digital and film cameras shared an optical system, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image. In 1986, the first sensor used to detect megapixels was invented by Kodak. In the same year, a prototype for an analog electronic SLR camera which was able to store images digitally was created by Nikon. In early 2000, the first digital SLR directed at consumers was released by Fujifilm. In 2008, mirrorless interchangeable lens camera emerged. Unlike a digital SLR, it does not have a mirror based optical viewfinder. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Leica_M9_Framework.jpg/220px-Leica_M9_Framework.jpg Figure 4: Mirrorless interchangeable lens camera Camera Handphone In 2000, the first camera phone was developed by Sharp. The phone had 0.1 megapixels sensor and 256 color display. In 2003, Samsung introduced the first 1 megapixels camera phone. In the same year, Casio introduces the first 2 megapixels phone. In 2004, Samsung introduced the first 3.2 and 5 megapixels phone. In 2005, Samsung introduced the first 7 megapixels phone. In 2006, Samsung introduces the first infrared camera phone and the first 10 megapixels camera phone. At this time, more than 50% of the world handphone had camera in it. http://c2499022.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/samsung-sch-b600-10-megapixel-cellphone.jpg Figure 5: Samsung 10 megapixels phone In 2007, the first 5 megapixels camera phone with 3x optical zoom was introduced by Samsung. In 2008, Digital Imaging Systems announced first 9 megapixels camera phone and Samsung introduced first 8 megapixels camera phone. In 2009, Samsung introduced first 8 megapixels camera phone with touchscreen and LG launched the slimmest 8 megapixels camera phone. In the same year, Samsung also introduced first 12 megapixels camera phone with 3x optical zoom. In 2010, the first 14 megapixels camera phone was introduced by Altek and Sony ericsson introduced the first 16 megapixels camera phone. At this time, more than 81% of the worlds cell phone had camera in it. In 2012, Nokia introduced the first 41 megapixels camera phone. Nokia 808 Pureview Figure 6: Nokia 41 megapixels camera phone Cases Studies Introduction The purpose of this section is to clearly illustrate that having good innovation and technology strategy management techniques are of paramount importance to sustaining any business. The authors will analyze how major companies such as Canon remain prosperous in the market, while also analyzing the fall of a once hugely successful giant in the imaging business, Kodak. Case study of Kodaks Rise and Fall Rise of Kodak: Kodak was one of the major leading brands and pioneers of the camera making business. Founded in 1880, its rise to dominance of the imaging industry came after its introduction of color films and Instamatic camera to the market in the 1960s.The companys near monopoly of film businesses continued in the 1970s as sales skyrocketed to a point where it had 90% of film and 85% of camera sales in the United States of America according to a 2005 case study for Harvard Business School. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/22/john-naughton-kodak-lessons). Fall of Kodak: By the 1980s, the emergence of a serious competitor in Fujifilm and Kodaks dominance in the US market was undermine after Fujifilm gained a share of the market by offering lower-priced film and supplies as well as adopting very aggressive marketing which included winning sponsorship rights to be the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, an opportunity which Kodak ironically passed up. During the 1990s, although Kodak tried to maintain itself as a healthy business by diversifying to other areas of business (including medical ,pharmaceutical (http://www.csub.edu/kej/documents/economic_rsch/2012-04-23.pdf),printers for both consumer and commercial use as well as chemical manufacturing.), these businesses were all bought and not developed in-house leading to income being shared (http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/how-fujifilm-survived). Eventually when sales from film developing and printing went into sharp decline nearing year 2000,earnings from these additional businesses simply do not scale up to the revenue gained from its core business which relied on film. In addition to the above, the development of digital photography technology and Kodaks own hesitancy of making the switch from film photography to digital photography proved to be one of the major causes of its eventual demise. This is clearly depicted as even though Kodak was a pioneer of digital cameras (Kodak first introduced it in 1975), the product was dropped as there was fear that it would threaten its core photographic film business which was hugely successful then. Sales and revenue soon begun to go into a decline with the arrival of the digital age and a change in core business model was made ultimately. Kodak soon introduced a range of digital cameras, inkjet printers as well as became one of the first to launch a photosharing website (www.ofoto.com) between the 1990s and 2000s to cope with the need to transform with the digital age. While efforts were made to transform and keep up with the digital photography, its business model and technology strategy was still flawed as Kodak still revolved around the idea of printing photos. For instance, in spite of being pioneers of photosharing online, Kodaks website merely served as a vessel for providing a service for online ordering of prints. (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505143_162-57363629/why-kodak-failed-and-how-to-avoid-the-same-fate/) In addition, the authors observed that despite innovating in the correct direction enjoying huge success with its line of digital cameras in the early 2000s, Kodak failed to anticipate the dynamics of digital photography and had no alternatives when consumers are no longer interested in photo printing but, sharing photos online in social media websites such as Flickr, Instagram and Facebook. Kodak being overly diversified, adopted the wrong technology strategy and did not exploit and capitalize early on a core digital camera technology Kodak pioneered, while investing heavily in developing technology for taking pictures in mobile phones and other digital devices. As a result, this allowed other companies such as Canon, Nikon and Sony to overtake and innovate further to produce hugely successful lines of digital cameras which eventually dominate the digital photography market. Furthermore, Kodaks success with digital cameras was short-lived towards 2010 when smartphones technology advanced and begun to include powerful cameras which are just as capable as the pocket digital cameras that Kodak was manufacturing. The following figure illustrates how camera phones such as the iPhone have gained a strong foothold in the market share of most popular cameras amongst consumers. Conclusion In a nut shell while aligning our observations to the concepts of technology management, there were multiple reasons contributing to the downfall of the once powerful giant in imaging market, Kodak. But this cannot be attributed entirely to the failure of incorrect technology forecasting or a lack of innovation. In fact, a report did circulate among the leaders of Kodak depicting the eventual permanent shift from film to digital by 2010 in 1979. It can also be observed from the earlier part of this chapter that Kodak was not at a shortage in the area of innovation. Consequently, the authors believe that it was not doing the correct technology road mapping which allowed other brands of digital cameras and camera phones to overtake them in the imaging market, leading to its ultimate demise and bankruptcy. This can be broken down into following: -The over reliance on a single product for revenue (film) -Lack of in-house expertise when diversifying into other areas of business -Slow transition from film to digital age -Despite early success, failed to forecast that digital cameras would eventually have low profit margins as more companies entered the market in mid-2000s, along with the emergence of camera phones -Slow transformation from a then overly diversified chemical manufacturer to a company mainly focused on imaging Had Kodak been able to identify and develop technology alternatives before making a better technological investment decision such as perhaps investing in SLR technology or social media websites which allows photosharing such as Flickr, Kodak might have been able to avoid their present predicament. This therefore emphasizes the importance of technology road mapping, as not having alternatives for a set product needs within different timeframes can have detrimental effects on businesses overtime. Case study of Canon Background In this section the authors will analyze how Canon, a company much like Kodak in terms of innovation and diversification of businesses, manage to still stay as one of the major leaders imaging market while facing the same challenges of having to make the switch from film to digital photography and decline of photo printing. Technology Strategy and Forecasting Canon introduced Japans first ever 35-mm focal-plane-shutter camera at a time when all high-quality cameras originated form the Europe, in 1935. Immediately after its founding and similarly to Kodak, it saw the importance of diversification and acted promptly with the introduction of Japans first indirect X-ray cameras, office equipment (calculators) and notably Japans first plain paper copying machine in 1970. As a result, the company adopted the management slogan of cameras in the right hand, business machines in the left and by then the company had already globalized (branches were set up in Europe and New York) successfully as exports took up 50 % of the total sales. Unlike Kodak, Canon continued to emphasize on the importance of in-house expertise by unceasing innovation of technology with the aim of becoming the best in all major business areas, be it in imaging (both medical and consumer) or multifunctional copiers technologies. This is achieved through constant innovation efforts such as setting up collaboration with Kyoto University in joint research projects. Shortly in 1976, Canon introduced the worlds first SLR with embedded micro-computer (AE-1), delivering powerful performance and along with its good ergonomics, propelled it into worldwide popularity among amateur and professional photographers alike, marking the start of its strong foothold in the share of the imaging market besides other current majors such as Nikon and Sony up till now. Besides being a leader in imaging industry, Canon also invested greatly on innovation in the technology of printers for both business and personal use. Its multifunctional copier division was notably very successful enabling it to hold the highest market share in the industry for the last 2 decades. Conclusion While Kodak had started to slip into decline because of its over reliance on film, Canon adopted good technology strategy and demonstrated good technology road mapping by making the best technology investment decisions with focused, continual innovation on camera technology (notably SLRs) and multifunctional copier technology. Hence Canon embraced the decline of films, photoprinting and the gradual replacement of compact digital cameras by smartphones through gaining a strong position in market areas of amateur and professional photography with their innovation in digital SLRs. The figure above shows its dominance in digital photography alone with smartphones. Along with ever changing times, Canon continued to strengthen product competitiveness in major business areas which also includes multifunctional copiers. In conclusion, while Canon had many business areas, Canon were not over-diversified like Kodak and one major difference leading to Canons success in diversification was because of the in-house expertise and technology management Canon had in dedicated business areas, an implication that income would not be shared with other companies as these business areas were not bought. Conclusion Future predictions of camera industry Global Camera Industry The world photographic products market has generated sales of over $55 billion in 2010, according to MarketLine. Cameras are leading the market with a sale close to $35 billion which is more than 60% of the overall market. Growth is expected to be accelerating at a rate of more than 3% every year, bringing the whole market up to over $65 billion by 2015. This consists of cameras, optical instruments, video cameras and other photogenic equipment. Digital photography continues to take over the sales of traditional cameras and films. And this is expected with the upcoming future of the industry Market Outlook However, with technological advances companies will need to continue investing in research and development of new technologies to stay in industrys cutting edge. There will be demands of new technologies of the consumers. As mentioned previously, Canon embraced the decline of films and photoprinting by the innovation of digital cameras. With online photo sharing/storing websites like Flickr, Google Plus or even Facebook, the generation of films and photoprinting is almost over proven by what has happened to Kodak. However smart phone cameras are slowly replacing the digital cameras. (Many often people are taking photos with their iPhone or Samsungs smartphone.) The percentage of photos taken with cameras and smartphones are declining and rising individually. Smartphones now have cameras of great qualities and functionalities in terms of programs known as apps and they will slowly continue to eat into the camera market. This has been shown by the appearance of smartphone picture uploading apps or social media like Instagram, Path, Facebook and many others more. But this may not necessarily remove digital cameras totally off the market. With constant technological advances, cameras with high performance capacity will become cheaper to produce. It will become a cycle that what used to be expensive and high-end products becomes the old technology and is cheaper to produce due to the advances. So low end cameras is becoming something with more advanced features. The consumer video camera market too is declining. Consumers are using their smart phones or DSLR to shoot videos. The video camera market will only move in the higher end markets (video producers, film makers) in the near future. Conclusion From our case studies above, it shows how Kodak and Canon tried applying technology management in their company to produce innovative product to the consumer market. However economic and social factors too play a part in innovation. By looking at Canon, few reasons why they were successful in the imaging market were because of their constant innovation on SLRs , coupled with the fact they were always targeting the market share of photography hobbyists, both in entry levels and professional level photography. However even though incorporating technology and innovative management into a organization does not guarantee 100% success. It depends on many factors such as the society, economic, the current market situation or even any other external factors. Kodak had tried displaying technology and innovation management in the corporation, however they have failed. Their over reliance on a single product for revenue (film), the lack of in-house expertise when diversifying into other areas of business and their slow transition from film to digital age these were the few factors that has caused their downfall of today. Our predications for the next 10 years: à ¢-  3D still and moving pictures will become standard in the next 5 years à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Cameras will have more on-board processing software that perfects the final image without the need for a computer à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Images to be printed on and saved to wafer-thin electronic paper called e-paper. Recently showcased by LG this flexible, full colour display is the wave of the future, and could be used in so many different products including e-readers. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Immediate upload of your image once taken to your favourite internet site with Bluetooth connection for cameras http://www.firstcall-photographic.co.uk/userfiles/file/digital_imaging_1990-2010.pdf Figure 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura Figure 2 3: http://www.sony.com Figure 4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorless_interchangeable-lens_camera Figure 5: http://www.unwiredview.com/2007/01/09/10-megapixel-samsung-sch-b600-phone-nears-worldwide-launch/ Figure 6: http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/808pureview/specifications/