MP3 :: essays research papers fc

Executive summary It's only been about three years since a little known extension of an audio compression technique-MPEG-2 Audio Layer-3 or MP3-opened the door to being able to send large volumes of CD-quality music over the Internet by pack the equivalent of several commercial compact disks onto the equivalent of one CD platter (Lange 01). It also initiated the veritable floor of pirating activity by an underground community students and hackers. Hundreds of MP3 Internet sites sprung up overnight. At these sites, everything in music from Mozart to Marilyn Manson is being reproduced (Lange 01). Of course, it's illegal, but it's free, which has a huge appeal. Two men summarize the battle that is still raging over this new technology. On one side there's Val Azzoli, co-CEO of the Atlantic Group, which has numerous popular artists signed to their label; and on the other is the CEO of the website MP3.com, which gives away digitized songs by new artists that no one has heard of yet (Mardesich 96). While this may not sound like much of a threat, what lies at the heart of this conflict is the concern of recording industry that this new technology may chance the balance of power and if allows the shipment of music directly to the consumer (Mardesich 96). The five giant corporations that contr ol 80% of the global music industry-worth roughly $60 billion a year-have taken notice (Wood; D'arcy 42). The following discussion will explore more fully why the record companies, despite their obvious power, are scared. Pros and Cons It is the impressive 12:1 compression ratio of the MP3 that has made it so popular. While 60 or so Mbytes are needed to store a typical song, once it is converted to MP3 format it becomes a single 5 Mbyte file (Lange 01). "The advantages are obvious," commented one executive, "CD-quality sound in a small package" (Lange 01). The drawbacks are all felt by the record companies. Artists are likely to benefit, eventually, if they take advantage of the new technology and deliver their songs to their fans directly via the Internet (Mardesich 96). They'l l no longer have record companies making money off from their work and by eliminating this "middle man" could conceivably earn a great deal more then they do now. However, for the large record labels, this new technology could mean real trouble in the future. Right now, the loss are negligible. For example, Americans spent almost nothing on downloaded music in 1998, but they spent nearly $14 billion on music from stores (Mardesich 96). Nevertheless, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that MP3 piracy may have contributed to a

Islam :: essays research papers

The five pillars The Five Pillars of Islam are the structure of Muslim religion. They are the testimony of faith, prayer, giving, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and if you are lucky the pilgrimage to Makkah once in a lifetime. The first pillar, entitled the testament of faith, exploits the Belief in one God, Allah, whom constitutes the very foundation of Islam. Prayer is the next pillar of Islam. Prayers do not take more than five minutes and are required five times daily. In prayer, a person feels inner happiness, peace, and a direct connection between the worshipper and Allah. Giving Zakat, other known as supporting the needy, is the third pillar of Islam. Initially, Zakat was the issue that altered Muhammad’s views of the world and turned him into a political figure. Fasting for the month of Ramadan is the fourth pillar of Islam. Even the Quran states, "O you who believe fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you so that you can learn Taqwa" (Quran 2:183). Ramadan consists of fasting from dawn until sundown while concurrently abstaining from food, drink, and sexual contact. Finally, the pilgrimage to Mecca is the last pillar. Although these conditions seem intense, there are actually many benefits to these submitters. The temptations of the world seem to erase our understanding for religion and g-d. Fasting will remind you of what has been handed down to us. Ramadan can draw one closer to g-d by seclusion from the surrounding world. Ramadan will help achieve a willingness to give to the needy. Now you have been in their shoes and understand how it feels. Understanding discipline is important, since g-d has given us a free will, and the torture of Ramadan is a great reminder of how to view life. In the Quran one can find references to ritual prayer or salat. Holy Qur'an 2:149 "From whencesoever thou startest forth turn thy face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque; that is indeed the truth from thy Lord.

A Philippine Hero

†¦ I. for my part, have done everything possible to avoid it, although at the cost of many rights uselessly sacrificed†¦ My government can not remain indifferent in view of [the] violent and aggressive seizure of its territory by a nation which has arrogated to itself the title champion of oppressed nations. Thus†¦ my government is disposed to open hostilities [if America attacks the Visayas]. Upon their heads be all the blood which may be shed. Emilio Aguinaldo Proclamation, Malolos, January 5, 1899 In Larry Henares' program, some of the panelists -staunch admirers of Aguinaldo- expressed the oft-repeated view that the general failed to achieve greatness in the eyes of Filipinos simply because he lived too long. He didn't die young, in the flower of youth, like Jacinto, or in some twilight of the gods manner, like Bonifacio. He wasn't martyred, like Rizal, and he didn't die, penurious and neglected, like Mabini. He simply lived on, and on, until he became something like an antiquated relict fit for gawking at, but not for reverence. Poor, unheralded man. No one ever made it clear if anyone asked Aguinaldo if that's what he felt. I would think that Aguinaldo was exceedingly fortunate to have lived so long. He outlived many of his friends, but he also outlived all of his enemies. He was reviled during his lifetime -in some cases, because he involved himself in politics and thus made himself fair game- but he lived to see independence day moved to June 12. Isn't having lived long enough to be told of that change an exquisite achievement? And throughout his life, he had the loyalty and devotion of the those who belonged to the League of the Veterans of the Revolution. The things held against him, the sordid Tejeros Convention -one professor of history has pointed out that there were more votes cast than there were actually people to cast them- which led to the eventual execution of Bonifacio, and the assassination of Gen. Antonio Luna which was a great blow to the military viability of the forces of the Republic, may forever bar him from reaching the same exalted place in the affections of the Filipino people. They will always haunt him. But they do not, I think, diminish his greatness at all. The power struggle -a naked coup d'‚tat, some have called it- that led to Bonifacio's downfall does make for sickening reading. And his execution was a poor end for a patriot. But is such indignation over this, warranted? Do people get upset over this because, in reality, they are applying quasi-religious morality to a subject that should be divorced from it? Why should standards befitting religious sainthood be applied to secular heroism? Must you be â€Å"good† (in the way people like Fr. Nudas would define it) to be a hero? A hero for a secular country? When Bonifacio's competence to hold the portfolio of the department of the Interior was questioned by Daniel Tirona, the Supremo, indignant, demanded a retraction. He failed to get it. Furious, he declared the proceedings null and void, and left. NCC Chairman Laurel recounted with pride on Henares' program how his grandfather, Sotero, head of the Batangas delegation at Tejeros, and a Bonifacio supporter, reacted to the uproar that followed. He called for lambanog. He drank, pulled out his gun, and put it on the table. He demanded that, as they had all agreed to earlier, the decision of the majority be respected. Otherwise, mag ubusan na tayo. The majority sided with Aguinaldo. Bonifacio (or, depending on how you see it, Aguinaldo) had thrown down the gauntlet. As Sotero Laurel might have put it then, matira ang matibay. Aguinaldo won, obviously. The thing is, in a revolutionary situation, extreme situations call for extreme measures. You can't dilly-dally and sort things out and massage egos while the enemy tries to kill you all . Every revolution everywhere has been marred with competing factions, many of whom act out of less-than-noble motives. In the end, one group must prevail, one destiny achieved. The Revolution, for good or ill, had its destiny tied to Aguinaldo. While the movement (as Mabini saw it) faltered as a result of the Supremo's liquidation, it made it through. It was suspended after biak-na-bato, resumed again, and gave birth to the proclamation made from a window of a house in Kawit on June 12. The proclamation of the Philippines as a free country. The Republic did not prosper. Was it Aguinaldo's fault? The fault of the Ilustrados? Did it fail because of competing views and interests within it, divisions that exist to this day in our country and in other countries with similar histories? Left to ourselves, they had as good a chance of eventually working them out as any other people on earth. But they weren't left alone. They were subdued with krag rifles and American tactics. Laudably, the Centennial Commission has made it clear that it is the proclamation and not the substance of independence that will be commemorated in 1998. A proclamation whose aspirations have endured. As have its symbols: our flag, our anthem. Aspirations we strove to fulfill in 1946, aspirations every generation tries to fulfill up to the present. Aguinaldo was responsible for that declaration, that flag, that anthem. He gave the nation vessels to contain its soul. We should be able to forgive him for being a flawed man and a poor politician. Again and again, our pantheon of heroes has been besieged by angry mobs, intent on pulling down -or raising up high above the others- the statues of great Filipinos. We, who should, as befits a supposedly democratic and liberal state, find nothing wrong or ignoble in having our heroes stand side-by-side, remain obsessed with establishing heroic hierarchies, as though the leaders we revere were petty princelings subject to Byzantine rules of precedence. Are we a people unworthy of heroes in the first place?

Postcolonialism

Postcolonial is that which questions, overturns, and / or critically refracts colonial authority-its epistemology and forms of violence, its claims to superiority. Postcolonial therefore refers to those theories, texts, political strategies, and modes of activism that engage in such questioning, that aim to challenge structural inequalities and bring about social Justice. It is helpful to view postcolonial in a comparative frame alongside feminism.Both these approaches arrived at points of critical self-awareness in definitive periods of civil rights protests. This conjunction ay be partly explained by the fact that both approaches champion resistance to entrenched singular forms of authority (patriarchy, empire) from below or from positions of so called weakness. Both too seek the politicians of areas conventionally considered as non political: the domestic space, education, sport, the street, who may walk where, who may sit where, and how.Some of the central critical concepts of po stcolonial developed out of nationalist struggles for independence in the early half of the twentieth century. The political and cultural reforms proposed y anti-colonial movements in such countries as India, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Kenya and in the Caribbean, formed the fountainhead of what we now call postcolonial. At first, these movements advocated a politics of assimilation of ‘natives' or the colonized into colonial society for them to obtain self representation.They began with limited demands for piecemeal constitutional reforms but it became rapidly clear that the colonial authorities were not ready to dismantle the social, economic and political hierarchies on which their control rested. After the end of World War II, anti colonial nationalist movements took a more confrontational, no-compromise attitude. The demand was for complete independence. This demand extended not only to the liberation of political structures but also to the obliteration of the colonization of the psyche.The sass marked a period of growing militancy in movements across the colonized world. Alongside came the retrieval and animation of indigenous culture as an important vehicle of national self expression and thus of resistance to the colonial exclusion of the native as uncouth, uncivilized inarticulate and irrational. The nationalist leaders and intellectuals like Gandhi and Nehru in India, fanons in Algeria and Came Markham in Ghana, helped define the major ideologies of postcolonial liberation.They shaped some of the definitive concepts of postcolonial studies, as later interpreted in the works of Edward Said. They understood the anti-colonial struggle as a Mechanical, or binary, conflict of us against them, of self versus ‘other'. The binary between the so-called rational, superior colonial self and the barbarism and irrationality indicated by everything that was not-self or ‘other' was to be repudiated wholesale. It was not Just to be turned upside down, b ut also destroyed. The chains of oppression were to be obliterated and not simply filed down.If natives or others were always seen as secondary figures, imperfect replicas of the colonizer, wearers of borrowed cultural rags; if native society was invariably represented as disorderly or ethically degenerate; it was important that they remake themselves from scratch. It was essential that they reconstitute their identity on their own terms, that they Initialized, Africanize, or Caribbean themselves. They effectively needed to give birth to a new identity, to peak in a language that was chosen, not imposed. The liberation struggle involved a tripartite process.It led from attempted cultural assimilation with the colonizers, the first stage, through attempts at political reform, sometimes of an intensively radical kind, as in demands for self -help and self-representation, the second stage. But if the colonial state proved intransigent, as it so often did, from this phase of forceful se lf-assertion developed a possible third stage; outright militant resistance. As Robbing wrote , conditions could arise where ‘national life' had to become ‘perforce a national assault'.

Development Of Emotional Or Psycholgical Problems In Children

Psychologists, for a long time, have always faced the problem of how various emotional and psychological factors surface and developing human beings. In order to solve this problem, these psychologists have traced the various ailments and causes backwards towards childhood times. As a result, modern psychology, biology, and therapists have looked towards childhood markers which eventually dictate psychological and emotional well-being of children.However, the problem remains that tracking emotional and psychological problems that eventually surface in adults could and even in early childhood could not essentially be associated only to a single factor, but rather many other variables. In fact, recent research has continuously found many root causes and markers for predicting emotional and psychological problems in adults and especially in children. One such cause and root for emotional and psychological problems could be related to biology and genetics.As researchers have discovered, various genetic markers may be able to associate themselves with the root causes of abnormal emotional and psychological behavior. In fact, the role that genetics plays in emotion study and psychology has goes so far as to develop a whole new discipline of biological psychology which focuses on genetic factors that eventually result in the disabling or magnification of neural factors.Specifically in children, these genetic factors may affect psychology through language, pathology, learning and memory, cognition, and even over all consciousness. For example, although a society found in children has been traditionally associated environmental experiences and causes, psychologists have for a long time wondered why some kinds of anxiety disorders found in children come up so early as that social factors and cultural norms could not have played an essential role in its development.Towards this research, psychologists have discovered that there are genetic markers that could be passed fro m parent to offspring that directly result in nonnormal anxiety behavior. Also directly to the study of genetics is the association of other biological factors which contribution to emotional and psychological states of children. Genetics, by definition, has to do with the genes of an individual. However, imbalances in organs and biological factors and functions within the human body have also caused such psychological problems to surface in children.For example, occurrences of cerebral palsy in children — an abnormal biological condition that significantly affects emotional and psychological well-being of adults and children alike — could be associated to biological functions and biological causes. However, this research and field of connecting biological relationship to a motion and psychology of children is still in the research stage of scientific development is more and more psychologists are connecting their disciplines in euro signs.Mostly, at least, these biolo gists and psychologists have associated emotional and psychological issues of children to euro and brain activity which only reflects that our emotions and psychological state — even as children — could not only be associated to the environment. However, among all these disciplines, instructions, and research, a large part of the development of emotional and psychological problems in children could be associated to the environment.In fact, statistically, bringing together the research of emotional and psychological problems in children, environmental factors pose the most significant statistical and relevant cause for such behavior. Listing them all down and discussing them would fill volumes and volumes of work and relevant research has been made that connects recent environmental and social concerns that have not even been traditionally associated with emotional or psychological effects to children.For example, just one area of child psychology focuses on the family environment and how it significantly affects and causes many of the problems that surfaced early in childhood that contribution greatly to emotional or psychological health. Also, another childhood years, your pressure and social consciousness — specifically in the academic setting and age groups — has been a constant focus of child psychology research because of the significant effects that are contributed by such social pressure and social environment to the way children think and react especially to given situations.The development of emotional and psychological problems in children, therefore, could either be individual factors in genetics, biology, or environmental factors, work could also be in fact a mix of these three interrelated causal variables. Recent psychological research, again focusing on child psychology, or integrating these three disciplines through the use of open sharing of academic information, to understand the development of emotional or psychol ogical problems in children and they said the research is well underway in the identification of still new variables and factors to problems with regard to child mental health.

Oscar Wilde The Selfish Giant

First of all, in order to either agree or disagree with the statement regarding Wilde's respect for children we must identify the author's tone in his narrative, â€Å"The selfish Giant†. Since it is through the complex process of speech that the author reveals his attitudes to what he is talking about, his relation to his auditor or receiver, and his assumptions about the social level, intelligence, experience, values, and sensitivity of that person. Considering this, Oscar Wilde clearly has a kind and respectful attitude towards his plot and towards the reader of The Selfish Giant. His tone refers to childhood and the conflicts around it. It perceptible due to the fact that we are conscious of a voice beyond the voices of the characters that speak in the tale. We recognize the fact that there is a voice behind all the dramatis personae, even behind the third-person narrator. This is the sense of a pervasive authorial presence that communicates through the characters a world view. Consider, for example, the tone of the following passages in Wilde's The Selfish Giant: â€Å"My own garden is my own garden,† said the Giant; â€Å"any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.† â€Å"Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep.† â€Å"And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. â€Å"How selfish I have been!† he said; â€Å"now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever.† He was really very sorry for what he had done.† Second, the characterization of the protagonist is done by the narrator and also through the dialogues, which is undoubtedly the briefest and best form of character delineation since a long description of a character asks the reader to believe rather than deduct; and not all narrators are reliable either. By contrasting the children and the giant, the reader is lead to have a negative perception of the giant and sympathize with the children: â€Å"After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle.† â€Å"‘What are you doing here?' he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.† â€Å"He was a very selfish Giant.† Later on, when the giant and children start to share the same garden, and the same feelings, the giant is described with a different connotation: â€Å"Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. â€Å"I have many beautiful flowers,† he said; â€Å"but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.†Ã¢â‚¬  The characterization of the protagonist follows a development through, which is directly associated with the atmosphere and the setting. The changes that take place inside the giant's character and inside the garden are attached to each other. In addition, the action of The Selfish Giant takes place almost entirely in the Giant's property, inside the house and in the Garden, whose changes are directly related to the plot. The setting plays an important role in the dramatic events. The Garden is essential because it creates a feeling of verisimilitude or realism, since a garden is a known setting for kids. Besides, it's not merely a place of action, it is an acting place. It is a thematic space in that it assumes a thematic function, the atmosphere. The actions are shaped and somewhat predetermined by the nature of the place or setting. The Garden act as a kind of characterization device – The giant character feelings step backwards and forge ahead as the garden does, and so it happens the other way around. The Giant comes from an insensitivite and self-isolated state to the discovery of the beauty itself and the beauty of childhood, and also to a self-discovery. Therefore, the garden also follows his changes. â€Å"When they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. â€Å"It is your garden now, little children,† said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.† Thus, Wilde uses setting and space thematically and symbolically. Most of the events in Wilde's Selfish Giant take place inside the garden. Since one of the main themes of the novel is childhood, Wilde contrasts adults and children behavior towards nature and simple things of life by opposing two settings when the manifest behaviors are in contrast: Inside the giant's house, where the nature becomes abnormal, and outside the garden, where nature takes its course without changes. â€Å"The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. â€Å"How happy we were there,† they said to each other.† Besides, there are plenty of symbology in the story, starting with the names of the characters. There are several fertile words in the story, the words that suggest the most to the reader. Wilde suggests all in a few lines resulting in a single concentrated impression, as a result of it the narrative moves swiftly. In the tale, the Spring is a humanized character, and so are the Winter, the North Wind, the Hail, the Frost, and the Snow. The phenomena of nature stand for complex ideas or emotions associated with it. The Giant is a symbol too, he doesn't even have a first name, so that he represents a whole group of people sharing the same idea. In opposite to children's ideas, he could represent adults, in which connotation, denotation and symbolism combine to form a multiplicity of meanings. Also, by the naming the characters by the words of â€Å"giant†, â€Å"The spring†, â€Å"The Winter†, and other characters which are not usual in the real world, the narrator intimates that the story is likely to have an atmosphere of a fairy tale (in this case, about the adult's world getting in contact with the children's world), as far as genre is concerned, or at least that the plot involves some magic or unnatural events, more specifically the climate, which reflects the mood of the giant himself.

As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs Questions

When Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State, he believed that the Indians should just be left alone. Once he became president, he wanted to remove the Indians. I believe he did this because he anted to gain popularity. . Andrew Jacksons early political/ military career foreshadowed his Indian policies as President because he was always was a tough and violent guy and hated the Indians since day one. Now, as president, he fully Was pro-Lillian removal and supported the bill to remove Indians. 5. Zion, unlike traditional histories, believes that it was no just a war against Great Britain for survival, but essentially a war for land to expand the country. 6. Zions view of Arthur Schlesinger The Age of Jackson andMarvin Meyers The Jackson Persuasion is that the books concentrate more on his political and economic accounts, not on his years battling the Indians. Both books make Jackson look like the good man; they dont mention anything about him owning slaves and other heinous truths about him. 7. Cherokees desired to fit into society. They began owning slaves an adopted Christianity as their religion. 8. The purpose of Zion stating that Jackson was declaring states rights for Georgia on the Cherokee question but attackingSouth Carolinas right to to nullify a federal tariff to show that Jackson wanted to stay popular 9. The Trail of Tears was the removal of the Cherokee Indians by the government, from Georgia to Oklahoma. 10. The sign efficacy of the phrase As long as grass grows or water runs means basically that itll never happen. Jackson had used this phrase on the Indians. He said that the Indians could have their land and that no settlers would steal it from them, but Jackson had lied to the Indians because there land was still taken.