Thursday, November 28, 2019

Lord Of The Flies Symbolism Essays - English-language Films, Films

Lord Of The Flies Symbolism The novel Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, is a very symbolic peace of literature. Most of the symbols are very easy to identify and explain. One exception is clothing. Clothing was over looked as a symbol until the introduction of this symbolism project. It was overlooked because in our society clothing is a natural part of our every day lives, so even when we are reading, we tend to dismiss it as symbolizing only fashion or lack of. In Lord of the Flies clothing symbolizes order, rules and democracy. As the boy's clothing turns to rags, their order turns to chaos, their rules are discarded and their system of democracy is overthrown and replaced with a fascist leader. When the boys first arrive on the island they realize that there are no adults to tell them what to do or how to behave. Basically they see no rule enforcers as no rules. Most of the boys remove some or all of their clothing to go swimming or because of the heat. This shows right from the beginning that when clothes are removed so are the rules. Ralph calls an assembly by blowing the conch and the boys come dressed "in school uniforms; grey, blue, fawn, jacketed or jerseyed. There [are] badges, mottoes even, stripes of colour in stockings and pullovers." (19). The last to arrive at the assembly was Jack and his choir. Each boy in the choir is wearing a square black cap with a silver badge in it. Their bodies, from throat to ankle, [are] hidden by black cloaks which [bare] a long silver cross on the left breast and each neck [is] finished with a hambone frill. ... [Jack,] the boy who [controls] them [is] dressed the same way through his cap badge [is] golden. (21). Since the boys are dressed in their school uniforms they are orderly. They showed this by listening and sitting quietly. At this assembly Ralph's system of democracy is established simply by voting him to be chief. Ralph sets up rules and duties. Jack and his choir are to be hunters and all the biguns* are to share the obligation of fire watch, (the boys on fire watch sit up with the rescue fire to make sure it stays lit and omitting smoke). The remainder of the boys are to help Ralph build shelters and to keep coconuts, filled with fresh water, near camp. As the boys clothing starts to wear away to rages, their rules start to fade. No one except Simon helps to build the shelters, water is not being brought in coconut shells, and Jack takes the boys from the fire watch to help with his hunt. Due to Jack's actions the fire goes out and a ship passes them by. This shows Jack has a disregard for rules and rescue. The boy's clothing not only wears away, but they also become extremely filthy. They [are] dirty, not with the spectacular dirt of boys who have fallen into mud or been brought down hard on a rainy day. Not one of them was an obvious subject for a shower, and yet ? hair, much too long, tangled here and there, knotted round a dead leaf or a twig; faces cleaned fairly well by the process of eating and sweating but marked in the less accessible angles with a kind of shadow; clothes, worn away, stiff like his own with sweat, put on, not for decorum or comfort but out of custom;(121). The boys don't see themselves as dirty, they grow accustomed to the way they look and smell; which shows their decent into savagery, because civilized people are clean or at least aware of how dirty they are. Jack is the first boy to become savage. His savageness grows to make him the most savage of the group. When he is at his most savage moments, he is described with very few clothing on. When he is hunting "except for a pair of tattered shorts held up by his knife-belt he [is] naked." (52). When his tribe is raiding Ralph's, he is "stark naked save for paint and a belt" (155), and when he is beating Wilfred for no apparent reason, he is "naked to the waist." (176). Jack is the one who replaces Ralph's democratic system with his own fascist one. In Jack's tribe, killing is condoned and the boys wear barely any clothes. One night during a ritual pig killing dance, Simon stumbles

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Forget Familiarity. You Need An Outsider On Your Team

Forget Familiarity. You Need An Outsider On Your Team Readers dont like unfamiliarity, but unfamiliarity might actually help your team. The developers here at had been working for a while on the multi-scheduler, a highly requested feature. I hadnt been much involved in that feature like I had with some of the others. The UI design, the capabilities, how it worked–I only had a scant knowledge of what they were building. The multi-scheduler was finally launched, and I was excited to use it. This feature was going to make things much easier. I had my notebook out and prepared to jot down any questions or bugs I might find and started to use it. I set out to use it with a blog post, sharing the post on all of our social networks with this new feature. Any guesses on what happened? The Problem With Familiarity When you are too familiar with something, you dont see what is right in front of your eyes. Its easy for your mind to get set in a rut. When you are too familiar with something, you dont see problems right in front of your eyes.Familiarity is why it is more difficult to catch the errors or edits in your own writing (or code) than in the writing (or code) of others. Youve become used to–and normalized–the mistake by repeatedly creating or seeing it. It isnt a bad thing, I said later, after testing the new features, that Im not always heavily involved in the development. Its a question of familiarity. The more familiar you become with your product or service or website, the more unqualified you become to judge it objectively. That doesn’t  feel  true, but it is. Cliff Seal, Logos Creative InnoCentive is a site where people who need problems solved make them available for solvers. These are complex problems that range from medical to engineering. A study by researchers at the Harvard Business School revealed something interesting about the solutions that came through InnoCentive: not only did problems get solved (33% on time, even), but they tended to be solved by people operating on the fringe of their expertise. In other words, according to Sam McNerny on the blog Big Think, [i]f a biochemistry problem only attracted biochemists it tended to remain unsolved. But if the same problem was tackled by, say, a molecular biologist or an organic chemist the chances were greater that the problem would be solved. Outside thinking was vital. Why does familiarity trip you up? The non-expert speaks. Familiarity feels a lot like expertise. People who are the experts in their area on the team dont always like being disagreed with by someone who isnt an expert. Its hard, when you know that you know what you are doing, to be told by someone who seems wholly unconnected and unfamiliar that they dont agree with your decisions. You get indignant, defensive. You have all kinds of reasons why you are right.  How dare this outsider who has no understanding of context casually saunter by and say that doesnt work. Familiarity, on its own, is an expertise that is blinded. You dont want to kill your pets. People who are unfamiliar with a project dont have favorites in the project, while you, the creator, do. Killing your pet is tough. We especially dont like someone to come along and look at hours of work and say that doesnt make any sense. Problem is, our favorite parts of a project are often the one we are most familiar with and we have no objectivity about this pet in regards to whether it works or not. A fixation on that favorite thing can easily destroy a project. We feed just the one thing. Jack of all trades, master of nothing, or so the saying goes. Were a big fan of reading books here at , and often suggest books and resources that have helped us. The thing is, its easy to get in the habit of only reading a certain subject. If youre big into startups or entrepreneurship, it would be easy to continually read books or blogs solely about those topics. Are you so familiar with one topic, one area of expertise, that youre missing out on the possible connections you could be making between it and other topics? Expertise Is Still Valuable So should we shun being an expert and hope ignorance and luck will bring about creative breakthroughs? Geoffrey Colvin, in his book Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, discussed a study by Dean Keith Simonton, professor from the University of California at Davis. In his study, Simonton looked at more than 300 creative high achievers who were born between 1450 1850.  Were talking da Vinci, Beethoven–heavy hitters, in other words. He then measured their noteworthiness by how much space was devoted to them in a variety of reference works. What did Simonton find out? Plotted on a graph, the most noteworthy creators had knowledge, education, and training, but not excessive. There was a peak in the middle. It might have looked a bit like this: Does this mean youd be more creative if you knew less? Not exactly. According to Colvin, the most noteworthy creative people are those how have immersed themselves utterly in their chosen field, have devoted their lives to it, amassed tremendous knowledge of it, and continually pushed themselves to the front of it. Expertise is still a valuable component; you need experts. You need an understanding. You need the skills and the knowledge. You need that  10,000 hours of work. To be creative (and productively creative), you need a high level of skill, practice and knowledge. These are the foundations you need to even begin to approach the problems that need solving. Innovation occurs at the boundary of disciplines, but you’ll never hear about a novelist winning a Nobel Prize in physics.   @SamMcNerney Someone has to be an expert. And someone has to be able to approach a project as an outsider. If you can honestly assume the role of outsider on your own project, great. If not, youll have to find someone to do that for you. Keep in mind that the outsider may be an expert, too, but unfamiliar with your particular project. Think back to my example at the beginning: I could be considered an expert on , but the specific project was new to me. Introduce Unfamiliarity To Your Project How do you introduce the power of unfamiliarity to your project? 1. Stockpile Newbies Not everyone in your team has to be involved deeply in everything.  There is value in keeping a newbie on hand to test a product or read a blog post for the first time. If you are having a heavy planning meeting, dont bring in everyone. Bring in only the ones that need to be there. Save some of your team to be the fresh eyes that you bring in once in a while to give that unbiased outsider opinion. 2. Be Less Stubborn Consider the opinion of someone who doesnt have the expertise you have. Really consider it. Are you unwilling to listen because you cant get past your belief in your own knowledge? Are you letting arbitrary preferences or principles stand in the way?

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Comparative Financial Trend Analysis of HSBC and Santander Research Paper

Comparative Financial Trend Analysis of HSBC and Santander - Research Paper Example Personal assets among the other services are provided by the bank in other parts of the world such as in Latin America. Although the banking group has been providing wholesale services, it unveiled its retail services in 2013. HSBC is a global banking group whose operations feature in many countries across the globe. The banking group is headquartered in London with its subsidiaries operating under regional company segments. The group is listed on the London, Hong Kong, New York, Bermuda, and Paris markets with its shares being held by about 220,000 people across the globe. While acting as American Depository receipts, the shares trade on the NY market. The dominant nature of the banking corporation ensures that it minimizes costs through economies of scale while maintaining its dominance. The over 8000 outlets of the company are distributed in about 88 countries across the Asia Pacific Region, the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Middles East. The company’s key contact is Peter Bull, the Head of HSBC operations in the community and Nick Robins, the head of Climate Change Center of Excellence. The management of HSBC works hard to employ the latest strategies to enhance its dominance as well as ensure environmental sustainability. To this end, the banking group perceives consumption of energy as its greatest environmental impact with the use of papers, emission of carbon from business travels of the company being perceived as significant impacts. This is the main objective of this paper with the focus being comparison of the financial performance of the two major banks. This section compares all forms of financial performance of the banks especially concerning their assets, liabilities, revenues, profits and owners equity among other aspects. The mission of the bank is to enable businesses to thrive and at the same time prosper economies. That can be achieved by people been able to fulfill their dreams and hopes and help them realize their